Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
by the contract documents, see regulation 16(13). A period of not less than 40 days
(the tender period) must be allowed to enable interested parties to prepare and sub-
mit tenders, see regulation 16(16). However, that time limit can be reduced further
for reasons of urgency, if a Prior Information Notice has been issued and if the con-
tracting authority has given unrestricted and full direct access by electronic means to
the contract documents. See as follows:
•
regulation 16(17): a time limit of not less than ten days from the date of dispatch
of the invitation where the minimum time limit of 40 days is rendered impractical
for reasons of urgency;
•
regulation 16(18): generally to be not less than 36 days but in any event not less than
22 days, if a Prior Information Notice was submitted to the Official Journal at least
52 days and no more than 12 months prior to the dispatch of the OJEU Contract
Notice;
•
regulation 16(19): the time limits may be reduced by five days, provided that the
authority offers unrestricted and full direct access to the contract documents by
electronic means and the contract notice specifies the internet address at which the
contract documents are available.
In the restricted procedure, and in common with the open procedure, the contracting
authority must choose between tenders as they are bid, though it is possible to seek
clarification of the terms of bidders' proposals, and in certain circumstances bidders
may be asked to submit further tenders.
2.11.4 Step 4: Evaluation
The contracting authority must evaluate all bids either on the basis of lowest cost or
most economically advantageous tender, see regulation 30(1). When using the latter
basisofevaluation,thecontractingauthoritymuststatetheweightingwhichitgivesto
each of the criteria chosen in the contract notice or in the contract documents, which
is one of the requirements of transparency and helps bidders to understand how they
might make their proposals as attractive as possible, see regulation 30(3).
In
Lianakis and Others v Dimos Alexandroupolis and Others
(2008), it was held that
an authority cannot apply weightings and sub-criteria to award criteria set out in ten-
der documents unless those weightings or sub-criteria have been previously brought
to the bidder's attention. Furthermore, an authority cannot take account of a bidder's
experience, manpower, equipment or ability to perform the contract by an anticipated
deadline as part of the award criteria. Such criteria can only be taken into account at
the pre-qualification stage.
2.11.5 Step 5: Contract award
Following evaluation, a contracting authority may make a contract award decision,
and on doing so must provide bidders and those who applied to be selected to
