Skip to main content
Shaping Europe’s digital future
Call for tenders | Publikácia

Legal advice on European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI)

This publication is made pursuant to Point 3.1 of Annex 1 to Financial Regulation 2018 that provides for an ex-ante publication on the Institutions' websites of contracts with a value up to 138.999,99 EUR (Reference CNECT/2020/LVP/0090).

The European Commission will launch soon a call for tenders for a service contract of a maximum value of EUR 60.000.

The purpose of this call for tenders covers the following tasks:

Task 1

The memorandum must set out

  • All conceivable relevant legal questions and challenges arising from the operation of the EBSI infrastructure in English language and structured in two parts: issues arising at the network level and issues at application (use case) level. The memorandum should contain an overview (table) listing these issues and proposed solutions. 
  • Provide an advice on potential legal vehicles that could operate the EBSI infrastructure in the long run after the EU Commission has operationalized it with the support of governmental experts in the European Blockchain Partnership, considering the possibility of a future public-private partnership for using EBSI as a utility.

The memorandum must consider the outcome of meetings with the Commission’s EBSI project team and other oral information.

The memorandum should contain an annex with

  • emails summarizing oral advice, including those under Task 2 and 3 below;
  • draft building blocks for the terms of use (including liability disclaimers, jurisdiction, dispute settlement mechanism etc.) for the operation of EBSI.

Task 2

 Any advice (in writing and/or orally in meetings with minutes) to the European Commission on potential legal implications of certain proposed governance models for the operation of EBSI as a permissioned public blockchain, must be clear and operational. Any written improvements (with tracked changes) of draft documents concerning governance models, rules of operations, and service level agreements for the blockchain must be clear and operational (how to implement legal advice practically speaking).

Task 3

Any advice (in writing and/or orally in meetings with minutes) to the European Commission on relevant legal issues not covered by Tasks 1 and 2 should clearly identify “unknown unknowns” and provide practical advice on how to best address those issues going forward. Where oral advice is provided during meetings, it shall be summarized in writing thereafter.

Further information (including the minimum requirements) may be obtained in the Annex.

Interested economic operators can express their interest to participate in the call for tender until 01/12/2020 in writing to DG CONNECT at the European Commission at the following functional mailbox CNECT-LEGAL-ADVICE-ON-EBSI@ec.europa.eu.

No evaluation is performed at this stage. All the economic operators who have expressed their interest to participate in this procurement procedure within the above-mentioned deadline will be subsequently invited to submit a tender. The contracting authority reserves the right to also invite economic operators not included in the list of interested economic operators who responded to this ex-ante advertisement.

An economic operator may consider submitting a tender as a single entity or in collaboration with other service providers: either by submitting a joint tender with (a) partner(s) (assuming joint and several liability towards the contracting authority for the performance of the contract) and/or through subcontracting. In case of a joint tender with (a) partner(s), all partners must be identified in the expression of interest and cannot be modified at a further stage of the procurement procedure.

Only the candidates invited by the contracting authority to participate in this procurement procedure will be admissible.

Processing your reply to the ex-ante advertisement will involve the recording and processing of personal data (such as your name and address). Such data will be processed pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2018/1725 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the Community institutions and bodies and on the free movement of such data. Unless indicated otherwise, any personal data requested are required to register your interest to participate in the call for tender and will be processed solely for that purpose by the Data Controller. You are entitled to obtain access to your personal data on request and to rectify any such data that is inaccurate or incomplete. If you have any queries concerning the processing of your personal data, you may address them to the Data Controller.

Details concerning the processing of your personal data are available on the privacy statement.

You have the right of recourse at any time to the European Data Protection Supervisor for matters relating to the processing of your personal data.

For the purpose of this ex-ante advertisement, the Data Controller shall be the Head of the Unit "Administration and Finance", Directorate "Resources and Support", Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology. Any queries concerning the processing of personal data of the Candidate can be addressed to the data controller by using the e-mail address mentioned under Point "Purpose of this call for tenders" of the present ex-ante advertisement and by indicating the reference of the ex-ante advertisement.

Stiahnuté

Annex I - External legal advice for EBSI - Draft Tender Specifications.pdf
Stiahnuť