4

The background to the proceedings was set out as follows in paragraphs 1 to 6 of the order under appeal: ‘1 On 17 July 2013, the European Commission published in the Official Journal of the European Union a call for tenders in accordance with the open procedure under reference JRC IPR 2013 C04 0031 OC concerning the construction of a gas-turbine tri-generation power plant and associated maintenance on the site at Ispra (Italy) of its Joint Research Centre (JRC). The time limits for the receipt of tenders and for the opening of tenders were fixed, after corrigenda published in the Official Journal on 15 and 21 November 2013 respectively. The document entitled “Administrative Annex” appearing in the invitation to tender specified that the award of the contract was based on the most economically advantageous tender determined on the basis of its total cost and its technical quality, that a maximum of 80 points could be attributed to the total cost of the offer and that a maximum of 20 points could be attributed to the quality of the technical offer. 2 An information meeting was held on 10 September 2013 on the site of the JRC at Ispra. In a reply to a question raised during the meeting, an error was reported in the document “Contractor’s Tender” at line 2.31 concerning the service “FULL MAINTENANCE of the turbine generator for a 24 month period following receipt of the plant”, in respect of which the quantity requested was two instead of four. On 17 September 2013 the file containing that document was re-published in its corrected version on the website of the JRC. A further error having been found after the meeting in that same document at line 2.18 in relation to the service “Installation of the electrical supply to the plant 1st lot (MMC and supply of all the equipment for the plant)”, for which the requested quantity was one instead of two, the file containing the document “Contractor’s Tender” was re-published on the website of JRC on 9 October 2013. 3 The tender of [STC] presented on 15 November 2013 included a “first tender” and two “alternative tenders”. The tender evaluation committee rejected the two alternative tenders because of their non-compliance with the specifications set out in the call for tenders. Regarding the first tender, it found that the technical offer of [STC] did not contain the detailed estimation schedule required at Chapter 12 of the technical specifications in the call for tenders and that [STC] had drafted its financial tender on a non-updated version of the document “Contractor’s Tender”. On 30 January 2014, the Commission sent a letter to [STC] asking it to supply a detailed estimation schedule, as was required in the technical specifications. Regarding the financial tender, it sent [STC], as an enclosure, a corrected version of the document “Contractor’s Tender” in which it repeated the unit prices proposed by [STC] and applied them, as corrected on 9 October 2013, to the requested quantities. It asked [STC] to confirm the calculations resulting from the transposition of the proposed unit prices in the corrected document “Contractor’s Tender”. 4 [STC] sent its reply by e-mail on 7 February 2014. As the tender evaluation committee took the view that the replies did not meet its expectations, the Commission informed STC, in a letter of 3 April 2014, that its offer had received a negative assessment. In that same letter [STC] was informed of the name of the successful tenderer, namely (CPL Concordia Soc. Coop (“CPL Concordia”)), the number of points that it had obtained and the possibility of obtaining information on the characteristics and relative merits of the successful tender. 5 In a letter of 11 April 2014, [STC] disputed the assessment of the tender evaluation committee regarding its technical tender and its financial tender. It also asked to have access to the appointment decisions for the tender evaluation committee, to the minutes of the assessment, to the requests for “supplementation” or “clarification” of the supporting documents and to the corresponding replies, to the grading for the award and to the points awarded to each of the tendering undertakings with the corresponding grounds for rejection or selection. 6 In its letter of 15 April 2014, the Commission reminded STC of the name of the successful tenderer, stated the comparative marks and the characteristics of the tender of (CPL Concordia) from a technical and financial point of view and sent it an extract from the report of the tender evaluation committee.’