On 19 January 2021 Contracting Authority/Project Partner received following inquiry from Potential Tenderer:

Contracts

In the Selection criteria stated in Document, 01. §16.2.a Contract Notice/08 §6 Tender Submission Form - Experience , you request that the tenderer provide references of successful deliveries to projects of similar character. Whilst we certainly have delivered to requests of similar nature and even significantly larger requests, we are not able to disclose such information about our customers as we are obliged to ascertain that their information is handled according to our Privacy Policy. In short, it is our responsibility to seek after their integrity and making sure that their information is handled in a safe manner. Providing you with such information remains sensitive and would require us as a Supplier to acquire their written consent. Such efforts remain questionable due to the sensitive nature of this and may render us unable to submit our proposal to this tender in a timely manner. We see that it would be an unfortunate reason to not be considered and wish that you reconsider this request as I’m sure you are able to depict our ability to deliver by our annual turnover data that we will share in Document 08 Tender Submission Form. In addition, we will declare our Supply levels in Document 08 §7.2 Tender Submission Form – Tenderer’s Declarations, indicating our ability to deliver.

Tender Guarantee

We strongly urge that you reconsider the Tender Guarantee as this entails a severe cost for us and forces us to undergo a time consuming slow process and as we were not informed of a Tender Guarantee, we have not been able to prepare for such proactively either. Again, it would be truly unfortunate to be unable to submit in time due to this. By submitting our proposal, we oblige to deliver should we be the selected supplier. From a legal perspective, this should be sufficient to hold us accountable should we be unable to deliver. To summarize, we are asking you to consider removing this part, ultimately removing the following documents from the submission:

12. Tender Guarantee

13. Prefinance Guarantee

Instead, as a way to avoid the non-optimal bank guarantee, we suggest that our CEO signs a Bill of Exchange, which states that if we are unable to commit to our end of the bargain, then we pay a fine amounting to the same sum as the bank guarantee. I would also like to point out that our payment terms are net 30 days, thus, we typically deliver your equipment prior to receiving payment for it, in practice this means that you are able to withhold payment if we are unable to deliver, further strengthening your position to confirm proper delivery.

Answer/Clarification

The Tender „Specialized equipment for user and user experience research (Eye tracking and monitoring devices and software)“, ref. number: JN-01/2021, is part of the larger EU sufinanced project and consequently this Tender is subject of strict rules regarding EU sufinanced public procurements (more informations and links about these rules (PRAG) can be found inside tender dossier). Only eventual minor changes in the Tender are acceptable after announcement of Tender and before deadline for submission of tenders. It is unacceptable for Contracting Authority to accept any of above proposals from Potential Tenderer (regarding references and guarantees) because they are not minor changes and they would not be in line with rules regarding EU sufinanced public procurements. In addition, please keep in mind that tenders/offers can be submitted only by legal forms that are invited to this Tender.

With regards,

Evaluation Committee