Estravel wins in two public procurement disputes

Estravel, the largest travel agency in the Baltics, has successfully defended its position in two public procurement disputes related to procurements issued by the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency. The dispute related to the purchase of travel agency services for the innovation services and start-ups department and the procurement of travel agency services for the e-residency department. These were reopenings of competition organised under a framework agreement.

After Estravel had been selected as the best tenderer, the competing company contested the decision of both reopenings of competition, claiming that the contracting authority had wrongly evaluated the tenders and that they should have won the procurement.

The dispute in the Public Procurement Review Committee centered on whether the requirements and conditions of the framework agreement, which the tenderer had to comply with, applied to the submission of tenders in the reopenings of competition. The underlying issue was whether the minimum information provided as set out in the reopening of competition document could automatically be taken to imply a high quality sample tour, which should have been awarded maximum points.

The Public Procurement Review Committee concluded that both in the framework agreement documents and in the reopening of competition documents, the contracting authority had foreseen the assessment of the quality of the sample tour to be submitted and, more specifically, the quality of the tour to be assessed. It should have been clear to the tenderer that, in order to obtain higher scores and to demonstrate the quality of the proposed sample tour, the description of the sample tour should provide such information on the elements set out in the reopening of competition document as would allow the contracting authority to conclude that the tour was efficient and comfortable. In other words, the contracting authority did not assess something that was not known to the tenderers beforehand. The Review Committee considered that tenderers in this field should have been aware of the quality of travel indicators and that they should be included in the description of the sample tour in the tender.

Estravel was advised by Managing Associate Kaidi Reiljan-Sihvart and Procurement specialist Laura Frolov.