TENDER FILE / TERMS OF REFERENCE

(Competitive bidding procedure / One-off contract)

Purchase of IT equipment for the National Mediation and Conciliation Service

Contract N° 9312/2025/10

The Council of Europe is currently implementing a Project “Strengthening the social dimension in Ukraine” (the “Project”) until 31 December 2026 within the framework of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine “Resilience, Recovery and Reconstruction” for 2023-2026. The project aims to ensure that general public vulnerable groups, including war-affected population in Ukraine, benefit from targeted social protection and support.

One of the expected results of the project is the efficient operation of the national and local authorities in times of war and post-war context. The Project was addressed by the National Mediation and Conciliation Service with the request to provide IT equipment aiming to ensure the efficient and uninterrupted performance of its functions related to preventing, monitoring, and resolving collective labour disputes and supporting social dialogue, including in times of war. Reliable IT equipment is indispensable for the Service to strengthen its institutional resilience and more efficient operation in times of war.

In that context, the Project is looking for a Provider for the provision of IT equipment for the National Mediation and Conciliation Service (the deliverables are described in the Technical Specifications (Appendix I).

A.    TENDER RULES

This tender procedure is a competitive bidding procedure. In accordance with Rule 1395 of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe on the procurement procedures of the Council of Europe[1], the Organisation shall invite to tender at least three potential providers for any purchase between €2,000 (or €6,000 for intellectual services) and €171,000 tax exclusive.

This specific tender procedure aims at concluding a one-off contract for the provision of deliverables described in the Technical Specifications (Appendix I). A tender is considered valid for 180 calendar days as from the closing date for submission. The selection of tenderers will be made in the light of the criteria indicated below. All tenderers will be informed in writing of the outcome of the procedure.

The tenderer must be either a natural person, a legal person or consortia of legal and/or natural persons.

Tenders shall be submitted by email only (with attachments) to the email address indicated in the table below, with the following reference in subject: 9312/2025/10. Tenders addressed to another email address will be rejected.

The general information and contact details for this procedure are indicated on this page. You are invited to use the CoE Contact details indicated below for any question you may have. All questions shall be submitted at least 5 (five) working days before the deadline for submission of the tenders and shall be exclusively addressed to the email address indicated below with the following reference in subject: Questions – 9312/2025/10.

Type of contract ►	One-off contract
Duration ►	Until complete execution of the obligations of the parties (See Article 2 of the Legal conditions as reproduced in the Act of Engagement)
Deadline for submission of tenders/offers ►	04 February 2026 23h59 CET
Email for submission of tenders/offers ►	[email protected]
Email for questions ►	[email protected]
Expected starting date of execution ►	15 February 2026

B.    EXPECTED DELIVERABLES

The expected deliverables are described in the Technical Specifications (See Appendix I).

C.    FEES

All tenderers are invited to submit a Financial Offer, indicating their fees by completing the Appendix II

to the Contract.

Tenderers subject to VAT shall also indicate:

-     the Service Provider’s name and address;

-     its VAT number;

-     the full list of services;

-     the fee per type of deliverables (in Euros, tax exclusive);

-     the total amount per type of deliverables (in Euros, tax exclusive);

-     the total amount (in Euros), tax exclusive, the applicable VAT rate, the amount of VAT and the amount VAT inclusive.

The bidder understands and agrees that the fees proposed shall include the full assignment of all intellectual property rights related to the deliverables.

Payment of the Provider’s fees will be divided in accordance with the following:

• 50% of advance payment within 60 calendar days as from the day of the last signature of the Contract.

• thebalance payment within 60 calendar days upon acceptance of the final deliverables by the Council and the Recipient and on presentation of an invoice in Euros.

D.    ASSESSMENT

Exclusion criteria and absence of conflict of interests

(by signing the Act of Engagement, you declare on your honour not being in any of the below situations^[2])

Tenderers shall be excluded from participating in the tender procedure if they:

• have been sentenced by final judgment on one or more of the following charges: participation in a criminal organisation, corruption, fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing, terrorist offences or offences linked to terrorist activities, child labour or trafficking in human beings;
• are in a situation of bankruptcy, liquidation, termination of activity, insolvency or arrangement with creditors or any like situation arising from a procedure of the same kind, or are subject to a procedure of the same kind;
• have received a judgment with res judicata force, finding an offence that affects their professional integrity or serious professional misconduct;
• do not comply with their obligations as regards payment of social security contributions, taxes and dues, according to the statutory provisions of their country of incorporation, establishment or residence;
• are an entity created to circumvent tax, social or other legal obligations (empty shell company), have ever created or are in the process of creation of such an entity;
• have been involved in mismanagement of the Council of Europe funds or public funds;

·         are or appear to be in a situation of conflict of interest;

·         are retired Council of Europe staff members or are staff members having benefitted from an early departure scheme;

·         are currently employed by the Council of Europe or were employed by the Council of Europe on the date of the launch of the procurement procedure;

·         have not fulfilled, in the previous three years, their contractual obligations in the performance of a contract concluded with the Council of Europe leading to a total or partial refusal of payment and/or termination of the contract by the Council of Europe;

·         are subject to restrictive measures applied by the United Nations Security Council or the European Union. In the case of legal persons, the restrictive measures imposed on the tenderer’s owner(s) or executives will also exclude the tenderer from participating in this tender procedure.

Eligibility criteria

The eligibility criteria determine the conditions for participating in a procurement procedure and define the essential requirements that each bidder must comply with. Bidders shall demonstrate that they fulfil the following criteria:

Eligibility criteria	Document/s to be submitted
Legal registration as a legal entity or a private entrepreneur which is authorised to supply IT equipment and software;	Copy of the registration documents (in English or in Ukrainian)
At least two-years experience in the provision of services related to purchase of office IT equipment	Tender proposal
Correspondence of the proposed equipment with the minimum technical characteristics indicated in the Technical Specifications (Appendix I)	Tender proposal (containing the description of the proposed IT equipment, including the brand name and its specification)

The above eligibility criteria will be assessed on the basis of the documents listed in the table and, where relevant, on the basis of other supporting documents listed in Section F.

For consortia only: each consortium member will be assessed against the eligibility criteria above.

Award criteria

The award criteria aim at assessing the quality of a bidin order to identify the bid/s offering the best value for money. Eligible bids will be assessed against the following award criteria:

Award criteria	Document/s to be submitted
Quality of the offer (60 points), including: o    quality of the items proposed – compliance with technical requirements indicated in the Technical Specifications (Appendix I to the Contract) (50 points); o    timeframe for the delivery of equipment (10 points).	Completed and signed Tender proposal
Financial offer (40 points)	Completed and signed Appendix II to the Contract

The above award criteria will be assessed based on the bidder’s capacity, as outlined in the supporting document, or on the basis of a consolidated assessment of the combined capacity of all eligible profiles or consortium members if the bid is submitted by a legal person or a consortium.

Additional rules applicable to the submission and assessment of the bids

The bidders’ attention is drawn to the following additional rules governing the assessment of the bids:

§  Unless expressly provided otherwise in the tender documents, a bidder may not submit more than one bid for the same procurement procedure. Bidding for more than one lot – where a contract is divided into lots – is allowed;

§  In the same procurement procedure, a legal person may not submit a bid and, at the same time, be a member of a consortium also bidding under the same procurement procedure. In such cases, the Council of Europe reserves the right to exclude the bid submitted by the legal person from the procurement procedure.

E.     NEGOTIATIONS

The Council reserves the right to hold negotiations with the bidders in accordance with Article 20 of Rule 1395.

F.    DOCUMENTS TO BE PROVIDED

Ø  A Completed and signed Tender proposal in English in the form of official letter on their letterhead that contains the following sections:

o    Brief description of the Tenderer’s at least 2 years’ experience of procurement of IT equipment and delivery of services similar to the ones requested in this Tender File;

o    Description of the proposed IT equipment, including the brand name and its specification;

o    Deadlines for the equipment delivery;

o    The contact details of three relevant referees (current or previous clients): name, surname, title, phone number or e-mail;

Ø  A completed and signed copy of the Contract and additionally not signed .docx version of the file;

Ø  A completed and signed copy of the Financial offer in line with the requirements of section Cof the Tender File (see above) (Appendix II);

Ø  Copy of the registration documents;

Ø  Copy of the bank certificate with the account in EUR.

All documents shall be submitted in English except for the registration documents, which may be submitted in Ukrainian.  Failure to do so will result in the exclusion of the tender. If any of the documents listed above are missing, the Council of Europe reserves the right to reject the tender.

Documents may be submitted via file sharing services such as WeTransfer, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.). In this case, the link must mandatorily remain active for at least 30 days after the deadline for the submission of the bids. Failure to ensure this may lead to the bid being excluded from the procurement procedure.

The Council reserves the right to reject a tender if the scanned documents are of such a quality that the documents cannot be read.

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