Section 2: Procedure with negotiation

The minimum time limit for receipt of applications shall be thirty days from the date on which the contract notice is sent or, where the call for competition is made by means of a prior information notice, from the date on which the invitation to confirm interest is sent.Where a duly justified situation of urgency makes it impossible to comply with this minimum time limit, the contracting authority may set…

The contracting authority shall indicate in the consultation documents the minimum requirements with which tenders must comply.

The minimum period for receipt of initial tenders is thirty days from the date of dispatch of the invitation to tender.

The minimum period laid down in Article R. 2161-14 may be reduced: 1° To ten days if the contracting authority has published a prior information notice that has not been used as a call for tenders and where this notice meets the following conditions: a) It was sent for publication at least thirty-five days and at most twelve months before the date on which the contract notice was sent; b)…

A contracting authority other than a central public authority listed in a notice annexed to this Code may set the deadline for receipt of tenders by mutual agreement with the selected candidates, provided that this date is the same for all. In the absence of agreement, it shall set a deadline which may not be less than ten days from the date of dispatch of the invitation to tender.

The contracting authority shall negotiate with all tenderers in respect of their initial and subsequent tenders, with the exception of final tenders. It may, however, award the contract on the basis of the initial tenders without negotiation, provided that it has indicated in the contract notice or in the invitation to confirm interest that it reserves the right to do so. The minimum requirements mentioned in article R. 2161-13 and…

The procedure with negotiation may take place in successive phases so as to reduce the number of tenders to be negotiated by applying the award criteria defined in the consultation documents. The contracting authority shall indicate in one of these documents whether it will make use of this possibility.In the final negotiation phase, the number of tenders remaining to be negotiated must be sufficient to ensure genuine competition, provided that…

The contracting authority shall inform in writing all tenderers whose tenders have not been eliminated pursuant to Article R. 2161-18 of any changes made to the technical specifications or other consultation documents, with the exception of those defining the minimum requirements. Following these changes, the contracting authority shall allow tenderers sufficient and identical time to modify their tenders and, where appropriate, to resubmit them.

Where the contracting authority intends to conclude the negotiations, it shall inform the remaining tenderers and set a common deadline for the submission of any new or revised tenders.