Compliance requirements
A tenderer may be excluded if it or a relevant representative, manager or supervisory-body member has a final conviction within the applicable period (generally the last 5 years, or while an exclusion period remains in force) for participation in a criminal organisation, corruption, fraud, terrorist offences, money laundering or terrorist financing, or the illegal use of child labour or other forms of human trafficking. Exclusion grounds also include unpaid taxes or social-security contributions; bankruptcy, insolvency, liquidation, administration of assets by a liquidator or court, suspension of business, or a comparable situation; and, where applicable, an agreement with creditors.
Other grounds include serious professional misconduct; agreements or conduct intended to distort competition; an unmanageable conflict of interest; involvement in preparing the procurement that gives an unremediable competitive advantage; significant or repeated breaches of previous contracts resulting in early termination, damages, price reduction or penalties; breaches of environmental, social or labour-law obligations; and submitting false or misleading information, withholding required information or documents, improperly influencing the contracting authority, or seeking confidential information to gain an unfair advantage. The grounds also cover enabling a foreign national to work without a legal basis or in breach of employment conditions, including payment below the statutory wage rate; being subject to international sanctions; and, as a discretionary ground, conviction for tax offences. Where legally applicable, the tenderer may provide evidence of measures taken to restore its reliability.
Qualification criteria and exclusion grounds
The documents provided do not set out specific financial-capacity, experience or staffing thresholds. The tenderer must confirm that its bid complies with the procurement documents, is unconditional and remains valid for 4 months. If awarded the contract, it must provide the company and contract-signatory details, the basis for the signatory’s authority, a contract-performance contact and the company’s bank account number. It must also identify any persons authorised to represent, make decisions for or control it who are not listed in the commercial register, including their names, personal identification codes and authority, so that exclusion checks can be carried out.
Only tenderers established in Estonia, another EU Member State, an EEA Agreement country or a country party to the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement may participate; this also applies to joint tenderers and subcontractors. The successful tenderer must provide the prescribed identification, contact and legal-representative details for each subcontractor, as well as the subcontract agreement’s title, date, number and value, before contract performance begins, and provide the same information for subcontractors added later. Joint tenderers must appoint an authorised representative and submit the required power of attorney.
The tenderer must identify and justify any trade secrets in its bid; bid prices and other specified evaluation-related figures may not be designated as trade secrets. It must confirm compliance with the procurement documents and explain and evidence any claimed equivalence. It must also confirm that it will not involve, for more than 10% of the contract value, subcontractors or suppliers covered by the stated Russian sanctions restrictions, and that the offered goods are not subject to international sanctions and do not originate from sanctioned regions. The bid must include the required confirmations and information; conditional bids are not permitted.