European Defence Agency Code Of Conduct On Defence Procurement

This page is an extract from the full topic guidance on the European Defence Agency Code of Conduct on Defence Procurement (EDA) [65KB PDF]. It details any Constraints associated with the EDA Code, provides a summary of the Authoritative Guidance and lists any essential reading, further reading or associated documents.

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Constraints

Application of the European Defence Agency (EDA)s Code of Conduct on Defence Procurement External link to Internet content (the "Code") will be subject to close scrutiny by the EDA, its Steering Board and other subscribing Member States. For this reason, acquisition staff must take care to ensure that the procedures set out in the Code are observed and that comprehensive records are kept.

The consequences for non-compliance with this Code are likely to be political rather than legal. Non-compliance will cause political embarrassment to the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and nugatory work for the acquisition team.

Authoritative Guidance Summary

The EDA's Code applies to contracts for goods and services above the specified threshold of £810,580 that meet the criteria for the Article 346 (formerly Article 296) "warlike stores" exemption from the European Community (EC) Public Procurement Regulations.

The EDA's Code does not apply to:

public works contracts; or
certain types of public goods or services contracts (e.g. research and technology; collaborative procurements; nuclear, bacteriological and chemical goods and services; cryptographic equipment) that are automatically exempt; or
any public goods or services contracts that are exempt from the EC Public Procurement Regulations by virtue of the security and secrecy exemption.
any public goods or services contracts that are advertised in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Procurement of goods or services under the Code must be advertised by publishing a contract notice in the EDA's Electronic Bulletin Board. Acquisition teams must ensure the advertisements in the MOD Defence Contracts Bulletin and the EDA's Electronic Bulletin Board are entirely consistent. The arrangements for submitting notices to the EDA are set out in the Authoritative Guidance.

Non-competitive procurement and competitive procurement without prior publication are allowed under the specific circumstances set out in the Authoritative Guidance. Advertising is not required for such procurements although a Contract Award Notice has to be submitted to the EDA that includes the justification for the procurement route. The explanation given to the EDA for non-competitive procurement under the Code must be authorised by a commercial officer at Band B2 level or above.

DEFFORM 47 EDA (Invitation to Tender) must be issued with Invitations to Tender for requirements that fall under the scope of the Code.

The EDA has established a monitoring and reporting system to ensure mutual confidence between subscribing Member States that the Code is being implemented and applied on an equal and uniform basis.