Compliance requirements
The bidder must declare whether exclusion grounds apply to the bidder or relevant members of its management, supervisory or representative bodies. These include final convictions within the previous five years for participation in a criminal organisation, corruption, fraud, terrorist offences, money laundering or terrorist financing, and the use of child labour or human trafficking. Grounds also include unpaid taxes or social-security contributions; breaches of environmental, social or labour-law obligations; bankruptcy, insolvency, liquidation, comparable proceedings, an arrangement with creditors, assets administered by a liquidator or suspended business activity; serious professional misconduct; competition-distorting agreements; an unresolved conflict of interest; involvement in preparing this procurement where it creates an unremedied competitive advantage; serious or repeated failures under previous contracts resulting in early termination, damages or comparable sanctions; and false or misleading information, failure to provide required information or documents, or attempts to obtain confidential information or improperly influence the procedure.
National grounds also cover enabling a foreign national to work without a legal basis or in breach of applicable employment conditions, being subject to an international or Estonian government sanction, and convictions for tax offences. Where a ground applies, the bidder may provide information about remedial measures where permitted.
The procurement documents also restrict participation by businesses or representatives based in Russia or Belarus, and reliance on entities from those countries. The bidder must confirm that more than 50% of its ownership is not held directly or indirectly by Russian persons or entities, and that it is not acting for or under the direction of such persons or entities. Russian-linked subcontractors or suppliers must not account for more than 10% of the contract value under the stated sanction conditions. First-tier subcontractors are subject to checks during contract performance.
Qualification criteria and exclusion grounds
The bidder must submit a European Single Procurement Document (ESPD). This applies to all joint bidders and to entities whose technical or professional capacity is relied upon; the successful bidder must provide supporting documents when requested.
The bidder must have achieved net turnover of at least €1,000,000 in each of the last three completed financial years. This is evidenced by annual accounts, or, if the latest accounts have not yet been filed, by a turnover statement signed by a member of the management board.
During the 36 months preceding publication of the contract notice, the bidder must have completed at least two software development and/or maintenance contracts, each worth at least €500,000 excluding VAT. Each contract must have covered information-system analysis, system architecture, development, testing and deployment. For a framework agreement used as a reference, the values of the contracts performed under it may be aggregated. The bidder must list the contracts, their values, dates and counterparties, and, where applicable, the procurement reference number. The contracting authority may request confirmation from the counterparties if the information is not publicly available.
The bidder must use a quality manual or another document or guideline describing the software-development quality assurance practices it follows, and provide a description of its quality-assurance equipment, monitoring and analysis methods, and related measures.
The bidder’s average number of employees, management-board members and other personnel working under contract in software development and/or maintenance must have been at least 10 during the three years preceding the procurement. The bidder must provide the relevant workforce figures.
The bid must include CVs on the prescribed forms for the project manager, programmers 1 and 2, analyst and tester. The price must follow the prescribed pricing structure and state one hourly rate for development and maintenance services in euros excluding VAT, to two decimal places. The bidder must confirm compliance with the procurement documents and environmental requirements, including primarily delivering materials digitally, keeping files to an appropriate size and deleting unnecessary drafts and working files. Conditional bids are not permitted.
If subcontracting is planned, the bid must identify the planned subcontractors involved directly in performance, the proportion of the framework agreement to be subcontracted, and the size and nature of the relevant work. Joint bidders must appoint an authorised representative and confirm joint and several liability for performance. The bid must also provide the required contract-signing and performance contact details, information on the bidder’s authorised persons, and identify and justify any claimed trade secrets. Where equivalence is relied upon, the bid must explain it and include supporting evidence.