Our legal team of high experienced specialists, provides highly sought after public procurement support services for relevant applicants in public procurement projects.

Our team's flexibility and experience reassures even long distance professional relationships. We aim in catering for individuals and private legal entities, interested in participating in all types of procurement procedures available in Cyprus and Greece.

Our team is part of a network of lawyers across Europe led by Convers Procurement Services that was awarded a service contract by the Directorate General of Communications Networks, Content and Technology of the European Commission in order to implement the European Assistance for Innovation Procurement (EAFIP) initiative for 2019-2020.

More about the importance and mission of EAFIP may be found in the next page of this publication.

NEW LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Given the recent changes of national legislation in harmonization with the European Public Procurement Directives, informed and custom services become more crucial.

In a highly technical field, it is important for the interested applicants to have the necessary legal, strategic support not only for a correct and complete application in the project of choice, but also at all stages of the procedure.

ADVANTAGES OF BESPOKE SUPPORT

  • Certainty of compliance with the updated state monitoring schemes;
  • Minimisation of legal risk for the potential applicant;
  • Sidestepping of errors in the procedure;
  • Pro-active methods and avoidance of time consuming conflicts;
  • Sound advice on strategic management of post award claims.

OUR SERVICES OFFERED IN CYPRUS AND GREECE

  • Performance of due diligence reports ensuring conformity of foreign/local tenderers with national regulations prior to the bid;
  • De-codification of procurement terms and conditions;
  • Formation of relevant vehicles (e.g. Limited Liability Partnerships or Partnerships for Joint Ventures)
  • Drafting of agreements (e.g. profit sharing agreements);
  • Introduction to local partners as necessary;
  • Introduction to partners with relevant expertise for borrowing purposes;
  • Completion of the application and legal support throughout all the stages of the bidding process;
  • Resolving pressing matters during the standstill period;
  • Dispute resolution, injunctions procedures and legal representation at all stages before all national courts and authorities (i.e. Administrative Court, Tenders Review Authority).
  • EAFIP procurement assistance to public procurers as well as competing companies

THE IMPORTANCE OF EAFIP INITIATIVE

Using public procurement strategically to drive forward the development and the deployment of innovative solutions is essential to modernise public services while creating also business opportunities for companies in Europe. The quality and efficiency of public services will be able to benefit from а new wave of transformative digital innovations that are of strategic importance for European competitiveness. The majority of European countries recognise the strategic importance and encourage the wider use of innovation procurement. Therefore, in order to tum these opportunities into actions, there is а need to strengthen policy initiatives with capacity building and assistance on innovation procurement for public procurers.

The EAFIP initiative is important for innovative companies as it leads to the boosting of a particular new market for innovative solutions or even creating such a new market, as well as helping innovative companies reach economies of scale to grow their business.

EAFIP ASSISTANCE TO PUBLIC PROCURERS

EAFIP provides free of charge technical and legal assistance to public procurers across all EU Member States in the preparation and implementation of innovation procurement. This includes local assistance for pre-commercial procurements and public procurements of innovative solutions supported by local lawyers. Our firm is authorised from EAFIP to provide this support for Cyprus and Greece.

The assistance is open to all types of public procurers at all levels (local, regional, national) across all domains of public sector activity (e.g. security & safety, health and social services, transport, energy, water, environment, education and culture, construction and housing, public administration / e-government).

EAFIP OPPORTUNITIES FOR BUSINESS

The aim of the initiative is to promote good practices and reinforce the evidence base on completed innovation procurements across Europe as well as to encourage other public procurers to start PCP and PPI procurements.

The Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP), is used to stimulate R&D and innovation. It challenges businesses from the demand side, to develop innovative solutions for public needs, as it provides a first customer reference that enables companies to create a competitive advantage on the market. In PCP, public procurers, buy R&D from competing business to compare alternative solutions and the number of competing R&D businesses is reduced as each phase of the development process progresses.

It is important to note that whilst public procurers share the risks associated to R&D with the business, the business retains all Intellectual Property Rights, whilst procurers may keep certain licensing/ usage rights.

Public Procurement of Innovative solutions (PPI) occurs when the public sector uses its purchasing power to act as an early adopter of innovative solutions which are not yet available on large scale commercial basis. PPI is thus complementary with PCP, as PPI can enable larger scale deployment of solutions that were developed in small quantity in a preceding PCP.

PPI can also be used independently, to bring to the market innovative solutions that do not result from R&D but for example from organisational or process innovation.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.