(79)Where contracts are divided into lots, contracting authorities should, for instance in order to preserve competition or to ensure reliability of supply, be allowed to limit the number of lots for which an economic operator may tender; they should also be allowed to limit the number of lots that may be awarded to any one tenderer. However, the objective of facilitating greater access to public procurement by SMEs might be hampered if contracting authorities would be obliged to award the contract lot by lot even where this would entail having to accept substantially less advantageous solutions compared to an award grouping several or all of the lots. Where the possibility to apply such a method has been clearly indicated beforehand, it should therefore be possible for contracting authorities to conduct a comparative assessment of the tenders in order to establish whether the tenders submitted by a particular tenderer for a specific combination of lots would, taken as whole, fulfil the award criteria laid down in accordance with this Directive with regard to those lots better than the tenders for the individual lots concerned seen in isolation. If so, the contracting authority should be allowed to award a contract combining the lots in question to the tenderer concerned. It should be clarified that contracting authorities should conduct such a comparative assessment by first determining which tenders best fulfil the award criteria laid down for each individual lot and then comparing it with the tenders submitted by a particular tenderer for a specific combination of lots, taken as a whole.