Tender file for "Provision of Legal Services for FRA" and related Contracts concluded with Allber&Geiger and Mr Haris Tagaras (ex-judge at one of the EU Courts)

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Dear European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights,

Thank you for your reply and 20 annexes accessible from here http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/tende....

I hereby submit a confirmatory application and request a review of your decision not to grant me access to all requested documents.

Arguments:

Argument 1 - You did not grant me access to the Tender file for “Provision of Legal Services”, invoking that article 126 of Old Implementing Rules of the EU Financial Regulation would exempt FRA to publish a contract notice in order to award contracts for legal services.
I did not request access to Contract Notice for this Tender Procedure. I am aware that Article 126 IR reads as follows:
“1. Contracting authorities may use the negotiated procedure without prior publication of a contract notice, whatever the estimated value of the contract, in the following cases: (i) for contracts for legal services within the meaning of Annex IIB to Directive 2004/18/EC, provided that such contracts are appropriately advertised”.

I requested access to the Tender File for Legal Services, namely to following documents, part of the Tender File:

a) Invitations to Negotiate and the means of advertising, i.e. the name of newspapers where FRA advertised legal services or link to the relevant website of FRA where these services were advertised (see above: contracts for legal services have to be advertised appropriately).
b) The list of bidders invited to Negotiated Procedure
c) Terms of Reference for the type of legal services (i.e. staff issues, procurement issues, HR issues, etc),
d) Forms requested from bidders as eligibility criteria, selection criteria, etc
e) Evaluation Report and Award Decision.
f) Notification to all non-winner bidders and Notifications to successful bidder s - Alber and Geiger / Mr Bertrand Wagenbaur & Mr R. Wagenbaur and Mr Haris Tagaras , and any other lawyer not mentioned in your reply (see the lawyer who represented FRA in Procurement case before the General Court )
g) Framework Contract and Subsequent specific contacts awarded in the basis of the framework contract
h) Exclusion and selection criteria documents for bidders and their declaration of absence of conflict of interest.
i) any other relevant documents part of the Tender file.

Argument 2 - You did not provide me access to the Framework contract and subsequent specific contracts. You only provided me access to some Purchase Orders which you blanked (anonimized) in an inacceptable way and in total discordance with the meaning of the Regulation 2001/1049. In the purchase orders accessible from the links below even the name of services was blanked. Moreover, the Purchase orders reveals that FRA would have contracted acquisition of some goods and not services from Mr Bertrand Wagenbaur and Mr Haris Tagaras. Which these goods are? See the list of Purchase Orders below:

- Purchase Order of 24.04.2013 for Mr Wagenbaur – 7.100 Euro http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...

- Purchase Order of 21.02.2013 for Mr Haris Tagaras – 2.500 Euro http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...

- Purchase Order of 03.12.2012 for Mr Haris Tagaras – 2.500 Euro http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...

- Purchase Order of 20.11.2012 for Mr Wagenbaur – 3.200 Euro http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...

- Purchase Order of 05.11.2012 for Mr Haris Tagaras – 5.000 Euro http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...

- Purchase Order of 23.10.2012 for Mr Haris Tagaras – 3.500 Euro http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...

- Purchase Order of 11.10.2012 for Mr Haris Tagaras – 3.500 Euro http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...

- Purchase Order of 01.10.2012 for Mr Wagenbaur – 1.000 Euro (not signed by the Contractor – Mr Wagenbaur) http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...

- Purchase Order of 01.10.2012 for Mr Haris Tagaras – 4.500 Euro (not signed by the Contractor – Mr Haris Tagaras) http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...

As can be seen in the same date of 01.10.2012 FRA awarded 2 assignments: one for Mr Wagenbaur and one for Mr Tagaras. The purchase orders are not signed and the description of services is deleted. I request information if payments were done and if services were indeed delivered. Which are those services, for each contractor in part and for all contracts/purchase orders. Which are the staff cases Mr Tagaras dealt with and which are the staff cases Mr Wagenbaur dealt with. Are there any other lawyers employed by FRA and not listed in FRA reply?

NOTE - There was a procurement case brought against FRA ( Case T-397/11 accessible from here http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexU... ). FRA was represented by Mr L. Christodoulou but the legal services provided by this lawyer are not listed in the FRA reply. I request access to Purchase Order or Contracts concluded with Mr L. Christodoulou and information on the amount paid by FRA to Mr L. Christodoulou.

- Purchase Order of 23.03.2012 for Mr Wagenbaur – 17.700 Euro http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...
I request information on the services contracted and how many staff issues are covered by that amount of 17.700 Euro. Why this amount is triple or even quadruples comparing with the rest of the FRA purchase orders? Why the amount charged at FRA is of 17.7 times higher than the amount charged at European Commission in this contract (1.000 Euro for oral proceedings) http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/297/r...

I also request information if this amount of 17.700 Euro is charged as lobbying activities, taking view that Alber and Geiger provides also these types of services. See here http://www.albergeiger.com/about-us.php ( “Alber & Geiger is a political lobbying powerhouse, a leading European government relations law firm and a top CJEU litigation firm”). And see also the letter from this lobbying firm to FRA http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...

-Purchase Order of 14.02.2012 for Mr Wagenbaur – 1.500 Euro (No Contractor’s signature on the purchase order) http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...

- Purchase Order of 20.12.2011 for Mr Wagenbaur – 2.400 Euro (No Contractor’s signature on the purchase order) http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...
- For this amount of 4.800 Euro (16.09.2011) there is no Purchase order listed in FRA reply http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r... I request access to all related documents and information.

- For this amount of 8.500 Euro (17.12.2010) there is no Purchase order listed in FRA reply
http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...

http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...
I request access to all related documents and information.

- For this amount of 4.500 to 5.000 Euro (08.02.2010) there is no Purchase order listed in FRA reply http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/537/r...
I request access to all related documents and information.

Argument 3 – You did not grant me access to List of contracts awarded by FRA. please allow me to provide you the links to the new EU Financial Regulation and EC Rules of Application. As you can see there is an OBLIGATION on contracting authorities like FRA to publish a List of Contracts Awarded in every year. I request access to those lists which should include also the contracts for legal services (similar to model I provided to you previously – the one from ECB; see the link above in my first communication).

Link to new EU Financial Regulation:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexU...
Link to the new IR now called RAP:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexU... See Article 134 “Use of a negotiated procedure without prior publication of a contract notice (Article 104 of the Financial Regulation)”

********

Finally I would like to stress that your reply triggered some new requests. Therefore I hereby request access to the following documents and information:

*amounts paid to the lawyers of the perpetrators or alleged perpetrators in case F-112/10 (reimbursements of amounts)

* amounts paid to lawyers and investigators in cases of allegation of harassment against top seniors of FRA http://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/cases/...
http://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/en/cases/...

* amounts paid in cases before EDPS like this ones and any other news cases
http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/459/r...
http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/459/r...
http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/459/r...
http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/459/r...
http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/459/r...
* amounts paid to investigators nominated by Governing Board and or / FRA management Team.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address:
http://www.asktheeu.org/request/tender_f...

Yours faithfully,

Kurt Weiss