Section II: Object of the contract
II.1)Description
II.1.1)Title attributed to the contract by the contracting authority:
Funded group pension plan and life insurance scheme for conference interpreting agents (ACIs).
II.1.2)Type of contract and location of works, place of delivery or of performance:
Services.
Service category: No 6.
Main place of performance: Brussels, BELGIUM.
NUTS code: BE100.
II.1.3)The notice involves:
A public contract.
II.1.5)Short description of the contract or purchase(s):
The subject of the contract is to provide pension/life insurance to conference interpreting agents (ACIs) who have not nominated their pension provider. The company to whom the contract will be awarded will become 'the default pension provider' responsible for managing the ACIs' individual accounts and all the contributions paid in. The default pension provider will be also open for all ACIs who are members of other pension schemes and wish to change their pension provider. Details concerning general and specific requirements can be found in the tender specification.
II.1.6)Common procurement vocabulary (CPV):
66522000, 66511000.
II.1.7)Contract covered by the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA):
Yes.
II.1.8)Division into lots:
No.
II.1.9)Variants will be accepted:
No.
II.2)Quantity or scope of the contract
II.2.1)Total quantity or scope:
As of 1.8.2010, approximately 2 750 000 EUR have been accumulated in respect of unpaid pension contributions from ACIs who have not nominated a pension provider. This amount represents both the part withheld from the ACIs (8,25 % of their daily fee and other allowances) and the contribution made by the institutions (16,5 % of ACIs' daily fees and other allowances). It concerns, currently, 569 ACIs living for the most part in the European Union. Since the pension provider will be also open for newly accredited ACIs and ACIs who are members of other pension schemes and wish to change, the abovementioned amount may be higher and is not limited.
II.3)Duration of the contract or time limit for completion:
Duration in months: 60 (from the award of the contract).
Section III: Legal, economic, financial and technical information
III.1)Conditions relating to the contract
III.1.2)Main financing conditions and payment arrangements and/or reference to the relevant provisions regulating them:
At the start of the contract, the successful tenderer will receive the total of outstanding pension contributions of all ACIs who did not select their own pension provider. The detailed list of ACIs and the exact amount of the outstanding pension contributions will be determined only after the contract signature.
Contributions shall comprise 2 components:
— the first, to be borne by the institution engaging the ACIs, shall be 16,5 % of the daily fee and, where appropriate, of the flat-rate travel allowance,
— the second, to be deducted from the daily fee and, where appropriate, from the flat-rate travel allowance, shall be 8,25 % of the said fee and, where appropriate, of the said allowance.
Payments shall be made in euros on a batch/periodic basis.
Since the pension scheme will be open to all ACIs, the pension provider may also receive pension contributions from other ACIs who wish to affiliate (newcomers and ACIs with a pension scheme who wish to change their pension provider).
III.1.3)Legal form to be taken by the grouping of economic operators to whom the contract is to be awarded:
Tenderers must be pension providers: insurance companies, banks, asset managers, or institutions for occupational retirement provision (IORPs), set up in conformity with the legislation of a Member State of the European Union and having a registered office established in the ordinary territory of one of these Member States, offering all guarantees required by the applicable national legislation.
III.1.4)Other particular conditions to which the performance of the contract is subject:
Yes.
Description of particular conditions:
Further details and particular conditions can be found in the tender specification.
III.2)Conditions for participation
III.2.1)Personal situation of economic operators, including requirements relating to enrolment on professional or trade registers:
Information and formalities necessary for evaluating if requirements are met:
Tenderers shall be excluded from participation in a procurement procedure if:
(a) they are bankrupt or being wound up, are having their affairs administered by the courts, have entered into an arrangement with creditors, have suspended business activities, are the subject of proceedings concerning those matters, or are in any analogous situation arising from a similar procedure provided for in national legislation or regulations;
(b) they have been convicted of an offence concerning their professional conduct by a judgment which has the force of 'res judicata';
(c) they have been guilty of grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the contracting authority can justify;
(d) they have not fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions or the payment of taxes in accordance with the legal provisions of the country in which they are established or with those of the country of the contracting authority or those of the country where the contract is to be performed;
(e) they have been the subject of a judgment which has the force of 'res judicata' for fraud, corruption, involvement in a criminal organisation or any other illegal activity detrimental to the EU's financial interests;
(f) following another procurement procedure or grant award procedure financed by the EU budget, they have been declared to be in serious breach of contract for failure to comply with their contractual obligations.
Tenderers must certify that they are not in one of the situations listed above.
Contracts may not be awarded to candidates or tenderers who, during the procurement procedure for this contract:
(a) are subject to a conflict of interest.
Since the Commission wishes to ensure that no tenderers have direct or indirect interests of such a kind and magnitude that they could compromise their impartiality in the performance of the tasks forming the subject of this invitation to tender, tenderers are requested to state whether any of their company's employees or shareholders are former officials, temporary staff members who have left the Commission, officials on leave on personal grounds or persons who have been on placement at the Commission during the year preceding the invitation to tender. They must also provide all information on situations that they think could possibly be perceived as a potential source of conflicting interests. The Commission reserves the right to decide, on the basis of the information provided, whether or not there is actually a potential conflict of interests;
(b) are guilty of misrepresentation in supplying the information required by the contracting authority as a condition of participation in the contract procedure or fail to supply this information.
In their bid, tenderers must provide a declaration that they are not in any of the situations listed above. The Commission reserves the right to verify the information.
Tenderers must provide the following information concerning their professional and legal status:
— name, address, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail address and contact person,
— VAT number,
— certificate showing authorisation (by the relevant regulatory body of the country where the tenderer has its registered office) to provide pension/life insurance services. The relevant approval numbers of the tenderer must be notified to the Commission,
— the name of the competent supervisory authority,
— legal form,
— copy of the company's memorandum and articles of association,
— names and positions of directors.
III.2.2)Economic and financial capacity:
Information and formalities necessary for evaluating if requirements are met:
Tenderers must provide the following documents as evidence of their economic and financial capacity to perform the contract:
— solvency certificate (issued by the relevant regulatory body of the country where the tenderer has its registered office). Attestation (or copy of corresponding document submitted to the relevant supervisory authorities) that the company has the minimum level of solvency required by these authorities,
— proof of financial soundness: the tenderer must not be, or have been, in financial difficulty over the past 5 years,
— financial statements for the last 3 years covering audited accounts of the profit and loss account, balance sheets and notes to the financial statement,
— document stating that the tenderer is in compliance with social security obligations.
III.2.3)Technical capacity:
Information and formalities necessary for evaluating if requirements are met:
Tenderers must provide the following documents as evidence of their technical and professional capacity:
— documents showing that the tenderer has at least 5 years' experience in management of group life insurance or pension products,
— documents related to the tenderers' current group life insurance portfolio, or individually managed account portfolio, which should consist of at least 5 group schemes and a minimum of 5 000 natural persons insured,
— information concerning accrued reserves, or total amount of collectively managed individual accounts, which should amount to at least 500 000 000 EUR (at 31.12.2009), and premium payments received for this kind of scheme, which should amount to at least 20 000 000 EUR (receipts in 2009),
— a table giving the following information for the past 5 years:
group life insurance/collective management of individual saving accounts:
(a) number of schemes managed;
(b) number of schemes covering more than 500 persons;
(c) mathematical reserves for life insurance/ total amount on collectively managed individual accounts;
(d) receipts,
— a list of references or similar contracts,
— a signed declaration stating a thorough knowledge of at least 2 of the 3 working languages of the European Commission (English, French and German).
III.2.4)Reserved contracts:
No.
III.3)Conditions specific to services contracts
III.3.1)Execution of the service is reserved to a particular profession:
Yes.
Reference to the relevant law, regulation or administrative provision:
Please refer to point III.1.3.
III.3.2)Legal persons should indicate the names and professional qualifications of the staff responsible for the execution of the service:
Yes.
Section IV: Procedure
IV.1)Type of procedure
IV.1.1)Type of procedure:
Open.
IV.2)Award criteria
IV.2.1)Award criteria:
The most economically advantageous tender in terms of the criteria stated in the specifications, in the invitation to tender or to negotiate or in the descriptive document.
IV.2.2)An electronic auction will be used:
No.
IV.3)Administrative information
IV.3.1)File reference number attributed by the contracting authority:
SCIC/B4/2010/01.
IV.3.2)Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract:
No.
IV.3.3)Conditions for obtaining specifications and additional documents or descriptive document:
Time limit for receipt of requests for documents or for accessing documents:
29.10.2010 (16:00).
Payable documents: no.
IV.3.4)Time limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate:
4.11.2010 (16:00).
IV.3.6)Language(s) in which tenders or requests to participate may be drawn up:
Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish.
IV.3.7)Minimum time frame during which the tenderer must maintain the tender:
Duration in months: 8 (from the date stated for receipt of tender).
IV.3.8)Conditions for opening tenders:
Date: 19.11.2010 (15:00).
Place: avenue de Cortenbergh 107, 1049 Brussels, BELGIUM.
Persons authorised to be present at the opening of tenders: yes.
1 representative from each tenderer.
Section VI: Complementary information
VI.1)This is a recurrent procurement:
No.
VI.2)Contract related to a project and/or programme financed by EU funds:
No.
VI.3)Additional information:
Please refer to the tender specification and its annexes.
VI.4)Procedures for appeal
VI.4.1)Body responsible for appeal procedures:
VI.4.2)Lodging of appeals:
Precise information on deadline(s) for lodging appeals:
Within 2 months of the notification of the plaintiff, or in absence thereof, of the day on which it came to knowledge. A complaint to the European Ombudsman does not have an effect either to suspend this period or to open a new period for lodging appeals.
VI.5)Date of dispatch of this notice:
20.8.2010.