National Administration Procurement Regime
Public Law department report | National Administration Procurement Regime
On July 31, 2024, Disposition No. 62/2024 of the National Procurement Office was published in the Official Gazette, approving the new bidding documents for the National Administration Procurement Regime, which will come into effect on September 2, 2024. The following modifications, for information purposes, are the most remarkable:
– COMPR.AR: The new bidding documents aims to adapt the procedure for the procurement of goods and services to the National Public Administration’s Electronic Procurement System, called COMPR.AR. (Art. 1)
– SIPRO: it is regulated the registration in the Supplier Information System (from the Spanish SIPRO), a register in which suppliers of goods and services wishing to contract with the National Public Administration must be registered. SIPRO is associated with COMPR.AR. Foreign bidders, without a branch in the country, are exempt from the registration requirement in SIPRO-COMPR.AR. Regarding Joint Ventures (JV), once the offer has been awarded and before the notification of the purchase order, the registration procedure in SIPRO must be completed. Failure to comply will result in the revocation of the award due to the fault of the awardee. (Art. 4)
– Administrative remedies: Regarding administrative remedies, the “Regulation of Administrative Procedures. Decree 1759/72 -T.O. 2017” or any future replacement will be directly applicable. However, challenges to the evaluation report are not regulated by the provisions of Law No. 19.549 but by the specific rules of the Procurement Regime. (Arts. 2 and 7)
– Notifications: Notifications are primarily made through COMPR.AR system. If the notification cannot be made through this means, it will be carried out through the other means listed in Article 7 of the National Public Administration Procurement Regime Regulation approved by Decree No. 1030/16 and its amendments. (Art. 8)
– Special Address: The special real address and the special electronic address constituted in SIPRO continue to be valid, and it is the sole responsibility of the interested parties to keep these addresses updated. (Art. 9)
– Submission of Offers: The step of offer confirmation is included as a necessary step for the offer to be valid. (Art. 13)
– Offer Maintenance Period: The currently established period concerning the automatic extension of the offer maintenance is shortened, setting the maximum at six (6) months, starting from the date of the opening act. (Art. 17)
– Offer Requirements: As stated by Decree No. 70/2024, the requirement for the submission of a sworn statement of national offer is eliminated. (Art. 18)
– Opening of the bids: the opening of bids will be carried out through a public event via the COMPR.AR system. In the event of a general interruption of the system, duly verified by the National Procurement Office (“ONC”), which affects the normal conduct of the opening, the event will take place on the date set by the ONC in the communication issued for that purpose. Contracting agencies shall not issue a circular to postpone the bid opening date in the procedures. (Art. 27)
– Discrepancy in quotation: It is clarified that in the event of discrepancies between the quotation sheet generated by the electronic platform and any other quotation sheet that the supplier may eventually attach, the details in the first one will be considered valid. (Art. 20)
– Sustainability: it is incorporated the main sustainability criteria that can be included in the technical specifications of the special bidding documents as requirements that the goods or services to be contracted must meet. (Art. 24)
– Comparative table of offers: A comparative table of offers is automatically generated from the COMPR.AR platform, reflecting the offers and even the discounts offered by the bidders. (Art. 29)
– Unfair competition: it is incorporated the founded suspicion of unfair competition as a cause to request technical reports when it is presumed that the offer cannot be fulfilled due to excessively low prices. (Art. 33)
– Evaluation and selection criteria for offers: it is incorporated the value-for-money criterion as a parameter for awarding the contract to the most advantageous offer for the organization. (Art. 34)
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