Public procurement notice: Contract Award Notice
Published: 2019-03-04
Buyer: NDLA
Country: NO
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Competitive procedure with negotiation
CPV classification: 72220000: Systems and technical consultancy services | 72222300: Information technology services | 72260000: Software-related services | 72315200: Data network management services | 72511000: Network management software services
Award criteria: Lowest price

Technical requirements: The objective of the tender contest is to enter into a contract with a tenderer who can design and establish a consolidated operating environment for the service for the Norwegian Digital Learning Arena (the New NDLA). The tenderer shall also be responsible for the management of the operating environment. The operating environment must be based on open standards and operated by a public cloud provider.
The computer centre must be operated in the most efficient manner and we expect that the provider has a continuous focus on own expenses, improvement and energy efficient systems.
The objective of the tender contest is to enter into a contract with a tenderer who can design and establish a consolidated operating environment for the service for the Norwegian Digital Learning Arena (the New NDLA). The tenderer shall also be responsible for the management of the operating environment. The operating environment must be based on open standards and operated by a public cloud provider.
The computer centre must be operated in the most efficient manner and we expect that the provider has a continuous focus on own expenses, improvement and energy efficient systems.
FOA § 25-4 states that the Contracting Authority can cancel the competition with immediate effect if there is a “justifiable reason”. Furthermore, legal procurement practice has found that in some cases, the Contracting Authority has an obligation to cancel the competition. This concerns cases where the Contracting Authority has made an error in the competition that could affect participation in the competition, and which can only be corrected by a cancellation.
A number of conditions have been uncovered throughout the process, which mean that NDLA deems it necessary to cancel the competition.
Only one tender was submitted in the competition. This tender has been evaluated. A negotiation and clarification meeting was also held to go through the tender. A revised tender was also submitted, based on the clarification and negotiation meeting. The tenderer's first tender did not cover the Contracting Authority's needs and was rejected, cf. the PPR §24-8, 2nd section, letter a). The rejection was postponed, cf. PPR § 24-10, 2nd section, so that the necessary clarifications were obtained.
The practice from both Kofa and the EU law court has been that there is a justifiable reason to cancel a competition if there is only one tender that is not rejected. The justification is that, in such cases, the contracting authority does not have a sufficient comparison basis to select a tenderer, see the EU law court case C-27/98 and kofa 2008/216.
NDLA now sees that this would not be covered by the tender. NDLA has, therefore, no tenders that cover the relevant need and is, thus, obliged to cancel the competition. NDLA will now review the need and announce a new competition, preferably by the end of 2019.