2025/006 Establishment of a multi-party framework agreement for the provision of legal services relating to Enterprise Ireland’s investment in Irish and international private equity and venture funds

Short description

Enterprise Ireland (EI), with funding from Government, has invested in five Seed and Venture Capital (SVC) Schemes since 1994 to help ensure that there is both an available and effective overall funding ecosystem for high growth companies and to address market failures in this area. The investment provided by these SVC Funds has supported a significant number of indigenous Irish companies over the years with more than €1.4bn invested in over 600 Enterprise Ireland supported companies to the end of 2024. On the 15th August 2024 the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment announced a sixth Seed and Venture Capital Scheme. The new Scheme has an increased allocation of €250m to be committed over the lifetime of the Seed and Venture Capital Scheme (2025-29) (the “Scheme”). In addition to these, other similar Schemes may be launched by Enterprise Ireland during the life of this Framework. The framework agreement will be established principally to provide legal services with respect to two areas: (i) Enterprise Ireland’s commitment to funds under the Seed and Venture Capital (“SVC”) Schemes and Advice in relation to venture capital and private equity entities and instruments. The full list of requirements are outlined in the tender documents. Tenderers must associate themselves with the competition in order to access the tender documents, ask and receive queries and submit a response.

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.

Main features of the procedure

The procedure involves a number of stages:
• Tender Stage (This stage)
Note: Tenderers should note that this Competition is being run under Regulation 74 of the European Union (Award of Public Authority Contracts) Regulations 2016 (the “Regulations”) and accordingly is subject only to limited aspects of the Regulations.
As this is a Title III service as per the Regulations the Contracting Authority is employing a single stage procedure with negotiation and any interested party may submit a tender.
The Contracting Authority will evaluate the tender submissions received against the specification, selection criteria and 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.

• The Negotiation Stage
Invitation to attend a negotiation meeting at which all aspects of the tender submitted may be discussed, including costs.

Those tenderers will be accorded an opportunity to submit a Best and Final Offer (BAFO), which will be assessed against the award criteria.

It should be emphasised that the Contracting Authority reserves the right to award the contract directly following receipt of initial tenders without recourse to negotiations with individual tenderers.

It should also be noted that the Contracting Authority reserves the right to employ a negotiation stage for the award of any call-off contract awarded under the framework agreement.

In the case of framework agreements, provide justification for any duration exceeding 4 years

Tenderers should note that this Competition is being run under Regulation 74 of the European Union (Award of Public Authority Contracts) Regulations 2016 (the “Regulations”), and accordingly is subject only to limited aspects of the Regulations. (Title III Services).