Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2017-01-07
Buyer: Ministry of Defence, Land Equipment, Armoured Vehicles Programmes — In-Service Platforms
Country: UK
Region: Bristol, City of
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 35410000: Armoured military vehicles
Estimated value: 4300000 GBP

Technical requirements: Repair and Maintenance of Thales Line Replacement Units (LRUs) and Repair of Protector Remote Weapon Station (RWS) respectively.
The Armoured Vehicle Programmes In-Service Platforms (AVP ISP) Team, part of the UK Ministry of Defence intends to award a 2-year contract to Thales Optronics Limited for the Repair and Maintenance of Thales Line Replacement Units (LRUs) and Repair of Protector Remote Weapon Station (RWS) respectively. It is considered that this contract can be placed using the Negotiated procedure without prior publication of a contract notice pursuant to Article 28(1)(e) of Directive 2009/81/EC of the European Parliament and of The Council (Regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) of the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011).
The Repair and Maintenance of Thales LRUs can be awarded under Regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) DSPCR 2011 for technical reasons. Thales Ltd are the Design Organisation (DO) for the LRUs and have the extensive in depth knowledge of these with access to original underlying technical knowledge which are required to provide the technical services required by the contract. The Authority does not possess the technical documentation and Thales Optronics Ltd has confirmed that they are unwilling to supply, licence or sell this technical information to another supplier. It is considered that to utilise another supplier which does not have access to these resources would represent safety implications for the end user. All refurbishment to the LRUs is underwritten by the DO to provide the MOD with the required assurance that the refurbishment will not compromise either the operational effectiveness or the safety of the Platform.
The Repair of Protector RWS element can also be awarded under Regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) for reasons connected with the protection of exclusive rights. Thales has been granted an exclusive licensing agreement from Kongsberg Defence and Aerospace enabling them to carry out the ‘Repair of Protector RWS LRUs’ for the MOD. Therefore, no other operator would be able to carry out the work.
The Authority reserves the right to amend any condition related to security of information to reflect any changes in national law or government policy. If any contract documents are accompanied by instructions on safeguarding classified information (e.g. a Security Aspects Letter), the Authority reserves the right to amend the terms of these instructions to reflect any changes in national law or government policy, whether in respect of the applicable protective marking scheme, specific protective markings given, the aspects to which any protective marking applies, or otherwise. The link below to the Gov.uk website provides information on the Government Security Classification.
Advertising Regime OJEU: This contract opportunity is published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), the MoD Defence Contracts Bulletin and www.contracts.mod.uk GO Reference: GO-201715-DCB-9356291.


Winner: Thales Optronics Limited
Award value: 4300000