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Contract award notice 2011/S 252-410610, financial statements

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Dear European Medicines Agency,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:

I refer to the Agency’s contract award notice 2011/S 252-410610 ‘ external service providers for software applications, including support: document and records management, content management, electronic archiving and Web publishing systems — EMA/2011/05/DV’.

According to the tender specifications, section ‘03- Selection Financial’, tenderers were required to submit ‘…a copy of the most recently audited accounts that cover the last three years of trading or for the period that is available if trading for less than 3 years? …’, hereafter: ‘the company accounts’.

I would be obliged if the Agency would provide me with full copies of the following documents:

1. The full set of the company accounts (3 years) submitted by the first contractor.

2. The parts of the tender evaluation committee report with the findings about the financial and economic standing of the first contractor.

3. The full set of the company accounts (3 years) submitted by the second contractor.

4. The parts of the tender evaluation committee report with the findings about the financial and economic standing of the second contractor.

With regards to the requested company accounts, those are essentially public documents, since they are filed with the supervising authorities stipulated by the national company law and are fully releasable to the public (perhaps subject to a small administrative fee). This means that no exception of article 4 of Regulation 1049/2001 is applicable to the documents requested under #1 and #3 above.

Yours faithfully,

Zois Zervos

EMA Info, European Medicines Agency

Dear Mr Zervos,

 

Thank you for contacting the European Medicines Agency.

 

I can confirm that your request has been received and we are now dealing
with your request.

 

We will contact you with further updates on your request in due course.

 

Please don’t hesitate to contact us, should you have any further
questions.

 

Kind regards,

 

Access to Documents
Business Data & Support Department
Procedure Management & Business Support Division

[1][EMA request email]
[2]http://www.ema.europa.eu

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) have now been published on the Agency's
website. It comprises answers to the most commonly asked questions
submitted to the EMA. You are invited to consult it here:
[3]http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?c...

 

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EMA Info, European Medicines Agency

Dear Mr Zervos,

Thank you for your e-mail dated 21st January 2014 in which you request
access to documents held by the European Medicines Agency.

 

Provision of information in an open and transparent manner is part of the
mission of the Agency.

 

We have reviewed your request and as it concerns a large number of
documents, and the Agency has to examine each document individually to
ensure that no private or public interests are being compromised, we are
not in a position to fulfil your request immediately.

 

This decision is in line with the principle set out in our policy which
states the Agency will apply the principle of proportionality in order to
avoid the core business tasks of the Agency and its performance being
jeopardised by the administrative workload related to activities within
Regulation 1049/2001.

 

Under the above stated Regulation, you will receive a reply
within 30 working days (15 + 15 days extension).

Kind Regards,

Business Data & Support Department
European Medicines Agency
7 Westferry Circus
Canary Wharf
London
E14 4HB
United Kingdom
[1]http://www.ema.europa.eu

New web form for submitting requests for information and documents is now
available. Please use this form to send a question to EMA.

[2]http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?c...

 

The most Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) received by the EMA are
published here:
[3]http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?c...

 

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Dear European Medicines Agency,

Thank you for your email of 7 February 2014 that extended the time-limit.

I would like to take this opportunity to make a number of observations that might be useful input to the analysis of EMA.

I. REQUSTS #1 AND #3

I.A. First priority contractor

The annual accounts are documents accessible by the public at the website of the Commercial Register of Luxembourg http://www.rcsl.lu. For a small fee, notarised copies are provided upon request.

Under such conditions, the annual accounts may not be considered as commercially sensitive. If there were commercially sensitive information in the annual accounts, such information would not have been disclosed therein in the first place.

I.B. Second priority contractor

i) The consortium leader, very detailed information and data of the kind requested in #3 are found in the published consolidated annual accounts, http://www.unisystems.com/files/enopoime....

ii) It is likely that the annual accounts of the second and third member of the consortium, their annual accounts are public documents.

I.C. European Commission Financial Transparency System ‘FTS’

A great deal of detailed financial information about these 4 economic is found at the FTS http://ec.europa.eu/budget/fts/index_en.... , down to the level of the amounts invoiced per specific contract.

Upon an application under Regulation 1049/2001, DG Budget may also grant full access to the underlying invoices for a given specific contract, since such invoices will not further disclose commercially sensitive information. At most, the invoices will disclose the breakdown of the aggregate amount per specific contract, which in itself does not appear to be commercially sensitive information.

I.D. Concluding remark

In view of all the above, it is difficult to understand how the annual accounts may be subject to the provisions of article 4(2) first indent of Regulation 1049/2001.

II. REQUEST #2 AND #4

In the absence of any information about the findings of the evaluation committee, it is impossible to have a view whether article 4(2) first indent or article 4(3) of Regulation 1049/2001 might be applicable.

In another application under Regulation 1049/2001, DG JUST provided FULL ACCESS to the report of the evaluation committee in a call for proposals, Ares(2013)3602756 - 29/11/2013 http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/877/r..., http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/877/r....

Whilst a call for proposals and a call for tenders are not identical, in so far the evaluation of the financial capacity of an applicant or a tenderer is concerned, there is a very large degree of similarity.

This line of analysis suggests that it is unlikely that the above-mentioned two exceptions of article 4 are applicable.

Yours faithfully,

Zois Zervos

EMA Info, European Medicines Agency

Dear Mr Zervos,

 

Following the provision of the requested documents regarding the external
service providers for software applications, including support: document
and records management, content management, electronic archiving and Web
publishing systems, we have received an inquiry from one of the contract
company, asking for information about your original request.

 

Prior to disclosing any information, we would like to kindly ask your
agreement to release the name of your company to the contract company,
owner of those documents.

 

Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Access to Documents
Business Data & Support Department
Procedure Management & Business Support Division

[1][EMA request email]
[2]http://www.ema.europa.eu

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) have now been published on the Agency's
website. It comprises answers to the most commonly asked questions
submitted to the EMA. You are invited to consult it here:
[3]http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?c...

 

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References

Visible links
1. mailto:[EMA request email]
2. http://www.ema.europa.eu/
3. http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?c...

Dear European Medicines Agency,

I refer to the application concerning the granting of access to the financial statements of the EMA contract award notice 2011/S 252-410610, http://www.asktheeu.org/en/request/contr...

By definition, the instant application is public since it is lodged via asktheeu.org. Consequently, under these circumstances the undersigned, like any applicant, has impliedly and irrevocably accepted that his/her name may be disclosed to the third-party document author. In other words, the EMA may disclose to the company(ies) the full details of the undersigned as found in asktheeu.org.

Having said that, the EMA might find useful to draw the attention of the company(ies) to the recent Preliminary Ruling of the Court of Justice in the Case C-418/11, Texdata Software, in particular paragraph 54:

‘The Court has already had occasion to rule that the fact that the annual accounts must give a true and fair view of the assets and liabilities, financial position and profit or loss of the company concerned constitutes a fundamental principle (see Case C-234/94
Tomberger [1996] ECR I-3133, paragraph 17, rectified by order of 10 July 1997; Case C-306/99 BIAO [2003] ECR I-1, paragraph 72; and Berlusconi and Others, paragraph 54). The disclosure of those annual accounts is primarily designed to provide information for
third parties who do not know or cannot obtain sufficient knowledge of the company’s accounting and financial situation (Case C-97/96 Daihatsu Deutschland [1997] ECR I-6843, paragraph 22).’

One expects that the contracting authorities, the public, and the shareholders of the company(ies), including the shareholders of the holding companies, will duly note any objection of the company(ies) for the full disclosure of its/their statutory annual accounts.

Yours faithfully,

Zois Zervos

EMA Info, European Medicines Agency

Dear Mr Zervos,

 

 

Thank you for your request received on the 21^st of January 2014 in which
you apply for the copies of the following documents:

 

-  The full set of the company accounts (3 years) submitted by the first
contractor.

 

-  The parts of the tender evaluation committee report with the findings
about the financial and economic standing of the first contractor.

 

-  The full set of the company accounts (3 years) submitted by the second
contractor.

 

-  The parts of the tender evaluation committee report with the findings
about the financial and economic standing of the second contractor.

 

 

Please be informed that the documents you have requested are publicly
available and may be obtained:

 

For Sword Group SA, the accounts are available in the company’s annual
reports, which are published on their website

 

[1]http://www.sword-group.com/English/Pages...

 

For Sword Technologies, the accounts are available from the Registre de
Commerce et des Societes de Luxembourg

 

[2]https://www.rcsl.lu/mjrcs/jsp/IndexActio...

 

For Uni Systems via the Official Gazette of the Hellenic Republic

 

[3]http://www.et.gr/

 

 

Kind regards,

 

Access to Documents
Business Data & Support Department
Procedure Management & Business Support Division

[4][EMA request email]
[5]http://www.ema.europa.eu

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) have now been published on the Agency's
website. It comprises answers to the most commonly asked questions
submitted to the EMA. You are invited to consult it here:
[6]http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?c...

 

 

show quoted sections

References

Visible links
1. http://www.sword-group.com/English/Pages...
2. https://www.rcsl.lu/mjrcs/jsp/IndexActio...
3. http://www.et.gr/
4. mailto:[EMA request email]
5. http://www.ema.europa.eu/
6. http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?c...

We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Zois Zervos please sign in and let everyone know.