## A. INSTRUCTIONS TO TENDERERS 

Committee are bound to secrecy. The evaluation reports and written records, in particular, are confidential and may be communicated neither to the tenderers nor to any party other than the Contracting Authority, the European Commission, the European Anti-Fraud Office and the European Court of Auditors. 

## 18. Ethics clauses / Corruptive practices 

a) Any attempt by a tenderer to obtain confidential information, enter into unlawful agreements with competitors or influence the Evaluation Committee or the Contracting Authority during the process of examining, clarifying, evaluating and comparing tenders will lead to the rejection of its tender and may result in administrative penalties. 

b) The tenderer must not be affected by any conflict of interest and must have no equivalent relation in that respect with other tenderers or parties involved in the current assignment. 

c) The European Investment Bank reserves the right to suspend or cancel project financing if corrupt practices of any kind are discovered at any stage of the award process or during the execution of a contract. For the purposes of this provision, ‘corrupt practices’ are the offer of a bribe, gift, gratuity or commission to any person as an inducement or reward for performing or refraining from any act relating to the award of a contract or execution of a contract already concluded with the Contracting Authority. 

d) Tenders will be rejected or contracts terminated if it emerges that the award or execution of a contract has given rise to unusual commercial expenses. Such unusual commercial expenses are commissions not mentioned in the main contract or not stemming from a properly concluded contract referring to the main contract, commissions not paid in return for any actual and legitimate service, commissions remitted to a tax haven, commissions paid to a payee who is not clearly identified or commissions paid to a company which has every appearance of being a front company. 

e) The Contracting Authority reserves the right to suspend or cancel the procedure, where the award procedure proves to have been subject to substantial errors, irregularities or fraud. If substantial errors, irregularities or fraud are discovered after the award of the Contract, the Contracting Authority may refrain from concluding the Contract. 

## 19. Signature of contract 

## 19.1. Notification of award 

The successful tenderer will be informed in writing that its tender has been accepted. 

The successful tenderer shall then confirm availability or unavailability of their key-experts within 5 days from the date of the notification of award. 

In case of unavailability the tenderer will be allowed to propose replacement key-expert(s). The successful tenderer shall give due justification for the exchange of the key-expert but the acceptance will not be limited to specific cases. Several replacement key-experts may be proposed but only one time-period of 15 days from the date of the notification of award will be offered. The replacement key-expert(s) cannot be an expert proposed by another tenderer in the same call for tender. 

The replacement key-expert's total score must be at least as high as the scores of the key- expert proposed in the tender. It must be emphasised that the minimum requirements for each evaluation criteria must be met by the replacement expert. 

If replacement key-experts are not proposed within the 15 days delay or if the replacement experts are not sufficiently qualified, or that the proposal of the replacement key-expert amends the award conditions which took place, the Contracting Authority may decide to award the contract to the second best technically compliant tenderer (also giving them a chance to replace a key-expert should he/she not be available). 

Should the Contracting Authority learn that a tenderer has confirmed the availability of a key expert and signed the contract although the tenderer has deliberately concealed the fact that the key-expert is unavailable from the date specified in the tender dossier for the start of the assignment, the Contracting Authority may decide to terminate the contract on the basis of 

