Contract Notice and Request for Tender

A procurement procedure comprises different phases of competitive tendering and the corresponding rules and procedures. The procedure starts with the drafting of a contract notice and a request for tender and ends with concluding a contract.

A contracting authority has ample discretion to decide what it purchases and under which conditions as well as what characteristics it considers important in the object of the procurement. The procurement documentation (contract notice and request for tender). must reflect this. Prior to initiating a procurement, the contracting authority shall determine the total estimated cost of the procurement excluding VAT as accurately as possible, in order to determine which procedural rules needs to be applied to the procurement.

The contracting authority must see to that the procurement is sufficiently advertised so that genuine competition is ensured.  A contract notice shall be published on contracts exceeding the EU and national thresholds on the HILMA web site, a reporting channel and an open electronic market place maintained by Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment. In addition to publication in the HILMA service, procurements with a value above EU thresholds are advertised in the Official Journal of the EU. A breach of the obligation to advertise procurements constitutes a substantial procedural defect, which can result in the annulment of the awarded contract by the Market Court.

In addition to the advertising, a contracting authority shall send a request for tender to tenderers. The request for tender is a document based on which the tenderers submit their tenders. The request for tender must therefore be very specific as to the object of the purchase, its extent, its quality, the relevant terms and conditions as well as the tendering procedure and its phases. For example the characteristics and the quality requirements must be defined in a precise manner. Based on therequest, enterprises must be able to assess their interest, applicability and potential to submit tenders.

The request for tender must be drafted in written in order to ensure the equal and non-discriminatory treatment of tenderers. The request must be specific and unambiguous to make sure that the tenders to be submitted are comparable and drafted in a similar way .