Interoperability in e-tendering: the case of the virtual company dossier

ABSTRACT

The effective use of ICT to enable interoperability in public procurement is an area of great significance for achieving the Lisbon objectives, i.e. to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world. However, the current European public e-Procurement infrastructure is inappropriate because it is characterized through a high market fragmentation and a lack of interoperability. To facilitate EU-wide interoperability in public e-Procurement the European Commission co-funds the PEPPOL (Pan-European Public Procurement On-Line) project within the Competitive Innovation Programme (CIP) Framework. PEPPOL aims at setting up pan-European pilot solutions that conjointly exist with national infrastructures. The project consists of several building blocks for e-Procurement that cover the entire e-Procurement process from pre-awarding to post-awarding. One of the key building blocks for the pre-awarding phase is the Virtual Company Dossier (VCD), an electronic cross-border document container that carries certificates and attestations required for the qualitative selection of tenderers. In this paper, we introduce findings from existing studies for designing a VCD, such as a feasibility study on Electronic Business Attestation and VCD related European legislations (e.g. Directive 2004/17/EC & Directive 2004/18/EC). Moreover we sketch the approach taken in the PEPPOL project to design pilots in two Member States.

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INDEX TERMS

General Terms:
Legal Aspects, Management, Standardization, Theory

Keywords:
certificates, e-tendering, electronic documents, high impact services, interoperability, public e-procurement