TENDER FILE / TERMS OF REFERENCE
(Competitive bidding procedure / One-off contract)
Provision of IT services for the development of the Citations and References Management System (CRMS)for the Court of Cassation of the Republic of Armenia
BH4972-2025-005
The Council of Europe is currently implementing the Project “Support to the justice reform in Armenia” (further – the Project) co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe within the framework of the Partnership for Good Governance (PGG III). The Project aims at supporting the ongoing judicial and legal reform undertaken by the Government of Armenia, including the criminal justice reform. In that context, it is looking for a Provider for the provision of IT services for the development of the Citations and References Management System (CRMS) system for the Court of Cassation of the Republic of Armenia (the deliverables are described in greater detail in the Business and Technical Requirements).
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 Business and Technical Requirements. 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 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: IT services for the development of the Citations and References Management System (CRMS) system for the Court of Cassation of the Republic of Armenia. 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-IT services for the development of the Citations and References Management System (CRMS) system for the Court of Cassation of the Republic of Armenia.
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Type of contract ► |
One-off contract |
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Duration ► |
Until complete execution of the obligations of the parties (See Article 2 of the Contract) |
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Deadline for submission of tenders/offers ► |
26 September 2025 18:00 Armenian time |
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Email for submission of tenders/offers ► |
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Email for questions ► |
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Expected starting date of execution ► |
10 October 2025 |
B. EXPECTED DELIVERABLES
The expected deliverables are described in the Business and Technical Requirements (See document attached).
C. FEES
All tenderers are invited to fill in the table of fees as reproduced in the Annex ‘Financial offer’.
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.
D. ASSESSMENT
Exclusion criteria and absence of conflict of interests
(by signing the Contract, 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
· Being a registered company in the field of software development
· Demonstrated experience in developing comparable systems with at least one record of integrating and supporting similar software within the last 3 years;
· The cloud solution shall ensure that all data is hosted within the territory of Armenia and be compliant with the requirements set out in the Government Decree N884-L, dated 14.06.2024. Sworn statement regarding storage of data will be required.
· The system must comply with the requirements set forth in the RA Government Decisions No. 1093-N (2015) and No. 572-N (2017), as well as the Henaket design standards issued by the Ministry of High-Tech Industry of the Republic of Armenia.
The above eligibility criteria will be assessed on the basis of the 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:
- Experience in providing similar services (20):
- Quality of the services provided by the Tenderer, as evidenced by detailed description of the suggested Citations and References Management System solution in accordance with the technical parameters defined in the Annex I Business and Technical Requirements (10);
- Relevance and capability of the proposed team to fulfil and manage the contract (10);
- Experience in collaborating with state institutions or international organisations (5);
- Knowledge of functioning of similar software/systems in the public sector (5).
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.
- Financial offer (50 points).
Multiple tendering is not authorised.
The Council reserves the right to hold negotiations with the bidders in accordance with Article 20 of Rule 1395.
F. DOCUMENTS TO BE PROVIDED
Tenderers are invited to submit:
· A completed and signed copy of the Contract (see document attached)[3];
· A ‘Financial offer’ in line with the requirements of Section C of the Tender File (see above);
· A Traceability Matrix;
· Registration documents for legal persons;
- A list of all owners and executive officers, for legal persons only;
· Technical proposal (one separate document), including:
- Detailed technical specifications of proposed IT equipment – in line with the Appendix I – Business and technical requirements;
- Delivery, Installation and Configuration and Testing Plan;
· Two references or contracts from previously delivered satisfactory services within the set deadlines (in 2020-2025) (only name, position, phone numbers and emails).
- Detailed CV of the person(s) of the proposed team who will be assigned to the contract;
- List of relevant projects implemented in the past with brief descriptions. You may also include supporting documents such as reference letters, copies of contracts, project documentation, acceptance certificates, or other relevant proofs;
- if available, a copy of software license agreement to be considered for inclusion in the contract.
All documents shall be submitted in English and in PDF format. Failure to do so will result in the exclusion of 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.
If any of the documents listed above are missing, the Council of Europe reserves the right to reject the tender.
The Council reserves the right to reject a tender if the scanned documents are of such a quality that the documents cannot be read once printed.
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[1] The activities of the Council of Europe are governed by its Statute and its internal Regulations. Procurement is governed by the Financial Regulations of the Organisation and by Rule 1395 of 20 June 2019 on the procurement procedures of the Council of Europe.
[2] The Council of Europe reserves the right to ask tenderers, at a later stage, to supply the following supporting documents:
- An extract from the record of convictions or failing that an equivalent document issued by the competent judicial or administrative authority of the country of incorporation, indicating that the first three and sixth above listed exclusion criteria are met;
- A certificate issued by the competent authority of the country of incorporation indicating that the fourth criterion is met;
- For legal persons, an extract from the companies register or other official document proving ownership and control of the Tenderer;
- For natural persons (including owners and executive officers of legal persons), a scanned copy of a valid photographic proof of identity (e.g. passport).
[3] The Contract must be completed, signed and scanned in its entirety (i.e. including all the pages). The scanned Contract may be sent page by page (attached to a single email) or as a compiled document, although a compiled document would be preferred. For all scanned documents, .pdf files are preferred.