2024 / 018 Establishment of a Multi-Party Framework Agreement for Legal Services in the area of European State Aid Law for Enterprise Ireland

Short description

Enterprise Ireland wishes to establish a Multi-Party Framework Agreement for Legal Services in the area of European State Aid Law. Enterprise Ireland makes a range of complex and high impact State Aid law decisions in order to support Irish businesses and Enterprise Ireland requires external State Aid legal advice in relation to many of these decisions. The Enterprise Ireland legal function is particularly focused on the provision of funding to Irish companies by way of grants, equity investments, convertible loan note subscriptions and repayable advances, in each case in compliance with State Aid law. In that regard, it avails of GBER and de minimis exemptions and also avails of EU state aid frameworks. This Competition offers interested service providers with specialist expertise in State Aid law the opportunity to participate in a competition for a place on a multi-party framework agreement. Enterprise Ireland requires firms with specialist expertise in the area of State Aid law with a record of: (a) advising Government Agencies in relation to interpreting the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and other European Treaties, and related European Commission and Council Regulations, Directives, Decisions and Guidelines, in each case in relation to State Aid; (b) appearing before the European Court of Justice and the General Court in State Aid cases; and (c) communicating with the European Commission on behalf of client public bodies in relation to State Aid issues; and (d) advising client public bodies in relation to notifying the European Commission in relation to State Aid. The full list of requirements is contained within the tender documents. As the subject matter of this competition is considered as a Title III service within the context of Directive 2014/24/EU, where the choice of procedure is open to the Contracting Authority, the procedure chosen on this occasion is a Single Stage Procedure with Negotiation. Tenderers must associate themselves with the competition in order to access the tender documents, ask and receive queries and submit a tender response. All responses must be submitted in a ZIP FILE format.

Main features of the procedure

As the subject matter of this competition is considered as a Title III service within the context of Directive 2014/24/EU, where the choice of procedure is open to the Contracting Authority, the procedure chosen on this occasion is a Single Stage Procedure with Negotiation. Tenders are invited from all interested parties on basis of the minimum based specification, award criteria and pricing documents as outlined in this Invitation to Tender.
Enterprise Ireland will evaluate those tenders against the award criteria and reserves the right to:
(a) Move straight to a contract award decision, without negotiation
(b) To apply the successive reduction rule to reduce the number of firms invited to the negotiation phase; or
(c) To invite all firms to negotiation meetings.

Additional information

(1) Interested parties must associate their organisation with this competition on the eTenders web site (www.etenders.gov.ie) in order to be included on the mailing list for clarifications and to upload tender responses. To do this you must do the following: Log-in to the eTenders portal; Locate the competition using the Advanced Search by searching under the Contracting Authority or Resource ID. Click on the hyperlink for the competition which will bring you to the CfT Workspace. In the Show CfT Menu for the competition click on the “Expression of Interest in the drop-down menu. Complete the Association with the CfT tab. This will then provide you with a link to Tender under the Show CfT Menu where you can prepare your submission.
(2) When finalising your tender submission please upload your final response as a ZIP file as individual documents may lose their titles if uploaded individually. Also ensure that you receive a message under the status header called Submitted, as the percentage tab does not necessarily imply you have successfully submitted your response.
(3) There is a maximum upload limit of 250MB per file and 500MB per tender submission.
(4) Suppliers should note the following when making their submission suppliers must ensure that they give themselves sufficient time to upload & submit all required documentation before the submission deadline. Suppliers should consider the fact that upload speeds vary and that the new eTenders system operates in a different manner to the previous platform operated by EU-Supply. The submit button will be disable automatically upon the expiration of the response deadline.
(5) If you experience difficulty when uploading documents, please contact the eTenders Support Desk for technical assistance. Email irish-eproc-helpdesk@eurodym.com or Telephone: +353(0)818 001459 (09:00 – 17:00 hours).
(6) Tenders submitted by any other means (including but not limited to email, post, messaging system on etenders or hand delivery) will not be accepted.
(7) All information relating to attachments, including clarifications and changes, will be published on the Irish Government Procurement Opportunities Portal (www.etenders.gov.ie) only. Registration is free of charge. The contracting authority will not accept responsibility for information relayed (or not relayed) via third parties.
(8) All queries regarding this tender requirement or process must be submitted through the Irish Government Procurement Opportunities Portal www.etenders.gov.ie as a specific question. Responses will be circulated to those tenderers that have registered an interest in this notice on www.etenders.gov.ie. The details of the person making a query will not be disclosed when circulating the response
(9) The contracting authority will not be responsible for any costs, charges or expenses incurred by candidates or tenderers. Contract award will be subject to the approval of the competent authorities.
(10) Without prejudice to the principle of equal treatment, the contracting authority is not obliged to engage in a clarification process in respect of the procurement documents with missing or incomplete information. Therefore, respondents are advised to ensure that they return completed documentation in order to avoid the risk of elimination from the competition.
(11) Where applicable, please note in relation to all documents, that where reference is made to a particular standard, make, source, process, trademark, type, or patent, that this is not to be regarded as a de facto requirement. In all such cases it should be understood that such indications are to be treated strictly and solely for reference purposes only, to which the words "or equivalent" will always be appended.
(12) At its absolute discretion, the contracting authority may elect to terminate this procurement process, the framework agreement or any contract awarded under the framework agreement at any time.