ESA updates Tender and Contract Conditions

On 21 September 2012, ESA published a notice about a change to the Tender and Contract Conditions. The modification concerns the protection of information subject to Export Control Regulations within ESA ITT and RfQ.

The following provision of the Special Conditions of Tender is withdrawn in its entirety:

"Should the tender contain any documentation with the information which is subject to export control laws and regulations (e.g ITAR), such as documentation shall be clearly identified and segregated in the Tender so as to allow proper handling by the Agency. In the absence of such identification and segregation, the Agency shall not be held responsible by the Tenderer and the Tenderer shall indemnify the Agency against any third party claim for any infringement of Laws and Statutes."

The provision inserted as Article 15.3.6 in the Draft Contract is modified to read:

"Should in the execution of the contract a need arise to provide the Agency with information which is subject to export control laws and regulations, the Contractor shall secure that such information is only passed on to the Agency in accordance with the provisions of such export  control and regulations."

The following part of the same Article is withdrawn:

"Documentation containing export controlled information shall further be clearly identified and segregated from other documentation by the contractor at the time of its submission to the Agency so as to allow its proper handling by the Agency. In the absence of such identification and segregation, the Agency shall not be held responsible by the contractor and the contractor shall indemnify the Agency against any Third Party Claim for any infringement of laws or statutes."

The modified provision under "Draft Contract" above will be complemented by a management provision describing the manner in which submission of export controlled documentation to the Agency shall be done.