OREANDA-NEWS. March 20, 2009. The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) found that the Federal Agency for Science and Innovations violated the Federal Law "On State and Municipal Procurement of Goods, Works and Services". As the discovered violations did not affect the tender results, FAS Russia did not issue a determination, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

The case was initiated upon a petition of "GEN" Ltd. The Petitioner stated that the Federal Agency for Science and Innovations violated the law in organizing an open tender for carrying out design-and-development works for governmental needs as part of the federal target programme "Research and Development on High-Priority Areas of Developing Russian Science and Technology Complex in 2007-2012".

The Petitioner complained that in evaluating and comparing tender bids, the tender commission unreasonably lowered the score of the Petitioner's bid un the "quality of works" criterion.

Investigating the case, FAS Russia established that under Part 3.2 Article 60 of the Federal Law "On State Procurement…", complaints about the outcome of bids evaluation under the criteria for bids evaluation, including the "quality of works" criterion, shall not be processed. At the same time, FAS Russia explained "GEN" Ltd. that under Part 2 Article 57 of the Law the company was entitled to file a lawsuit on invalidation the placement of order.

FAS Russia established that the Ordering Party had failed to present the bids for Nos.1-5 lots at the processing of the complaint, which was in breach of Part 3. Article 60 of the Federal Law "On State Procurement…" and contained the signs of administrative violations specified in Article 19.7.2 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Violations.

In accord with the form "Bid for Carrying Out Works" of the tender documentation, the bidders were required to include in the company questionnaire the information which was not specified in Part 3 Article 25 of the Federal Law "On State Procurement…".

The requirements, specified in the tender documentation, for including the said information in the bids as a condition for participating in the tender constitutes an administrative offence under Part 4 Article 7.30 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Violations.

As the above violations did not affect the outcome of the tender, FAS Russia did not issue a determination. Currently FAS Russia is examining possibility of initiating administrative proceedings.