19.5 Any attempt by tenderers to influence the evaluation committee in the process of examination, clarification, evaluation and comparison of tenders, to obtain information on how the procedure is progressing or to influence the contracting authority in its decision concerning the award of the contract will result in the immediate rejection of their tenders. 

19.6 All tenders received after the deadline for submission specified in the contract notice or these instructions will be kept by the contracting authority. The associated guarantees will be returned to the tenderers. No liability can be accepted for late delivery of tenders. Late tenders will be rejected and will not be evaluated. 

## 20. Evaluation of tenders 

20.1 Examination of the administrative conformity of tenders 

The aim at this stage is to check that tenders comply with the essential requirements of the tender dossier. A tender is deemed to comply if it satisfies all the conditions, procedures and specifications in the tender dossier without substantially departing from or attaching restrictions to them. 

Substantial departures or restrictions are those which affect the scope, quality or execution of the contract, differ widely from the terms of the tender dossier, limit the rights of the contracting authority or the tenderer’s obligations under the contract or distort competition for tenderers whose tenders do comply. Decisions to the effect that a tender is not administratively compliant must be duly justified in the evaluation minutes. 

If a tender does not comply with the tender dossier, it will be rejected immediately and may not subsequently be made to comply by correcting it or withdrawing the departure or restriction. 

20.2 Technical evaluation 

After analysing the tenders deemed to comply in administrative terms, the evaluation committee will rule on the technical admissibility of each tender, classifying it as technically compliant or non-compliant. 

The minimum qualifications required (see selection criteria in the additional information about the contract notice are to be evaluated at the start of this stage. 

Where contracts include after-sales service and/or training, the technical quality of such services will also be evaluated by using yes/no criteria as specified in the tender dossier. 

20.3 In the interests of transparency and equal treatment and to facilitate the examination and evaluation of tenders, the evaluation committee may ask each tenderer individually for clarification of its tender including breakdowns of prices, within a reasonable time limit to be fixed by the evaluation committee. The request for clarification and the response must be in writing, but no change in the price or substance of the tender may be sought, offered or permitted except as required to confirm the correction of arithmetical errors discovered during the evaluation of tenders pursuant to Article 20.4. Any such request for clarification must not distort competition. Decisions to the effect that a tender is not technically compliant must be duly justified in the evaluation minutes. 

20.4 Financial evaluation 

a) Tenders found to be technically compliant will be checked for any arithmetical errors in computation and summation. Errors will be corrected by the evaluation committee as follows: 

- where there is a discrepancy between amounts in figures and in words, the amount in words will be the amount taken into account; 

