This notification is only an EU prior information notice. This notification is not a preliminary notice to reduce the time period for tenders. Neither is this a tendering request, procurement notice or an invitation to a negotiated procedure. Hence, the contracting authority does not request any offers or tenders by this notification. The aim is to give out information regarding the needs of the contracting authority and at the same time request information. This notification and/or answering to it do not create any obligations for the contracting authority or for those who choose to answer to it. The contracting authority has the option of having a dialogue with potential bidders. This dialogue can be e.g., about the technical specifications of the procurement. The main goal of this RFI is to verify certain aspects. This RFI is a continuation to the RFI the contracting authority published earlier this year (2021). The most prominent questions we wish to get clarification on is: 1. Does the material we are now providing contain sufficient information for you as a Bidder to give a tender when the actual invitation to tender is published and no changes to the material was made? a. If not, please specify what more information you would require to be able to participate and give a tender once the actual invitation to tender is published. 2. Does the material we are no providing contain requirements or other terms that would prevent you from participating and giving a tender once the actual invitation to tender is published and if no changes to the given material was made? a. If yes, please specify which requirements or terms create the barrier and if possible, please suggest on how this could be remedied. 3. Any other remarks or comments you would wish to share with the contracting authority. The information provided by the contracting authority is preliminary and it is subject to change. The contracting authority has no obligation to make changes to the materials provided and the contracting authority makes the final decision on what the procurement material shall contain. The contracting authority is not obliged to make the procurement described in this information notice. The contracting authority does not pay any compensation for taking answering to this RFI. Not taking part in this RFI will not prevent any actors from later participating in the procurement itself. Taking or not taking part in the RFI does not change the standing or status of a company in the procurement process. The material will be available to anyone interested as a .zip-package on our webpage. The link to the material:
https://www.kkv.fi/forensic-analysis-research-tool-rfi-materials/ We kindly ask that you use your own stationary when answering to the questions above. Should you comment on some of the materials, we ask that you specify the possible requirements by referring to their ID, on the File Formats list we request that you specify the Excel-cell and on contracts you refer to the relevant section. Answers are kindly asked to be given either in Finnish or in English. If possible, please refrain from sending any confidential material i.e., trade or business secrets. If answering without including trade or business secrets is not possible, we kindly ask that you mark any of these clearly. We kindly ask that you send your answers and any additional material to our projects email:
FIT-hankinta@kkv.fi. Please note that the limit for what we can receive is 50 MB. We kindly ask that you answer by 16 o’clock 31st of January 2022. You may answer prior to the abovementioned time should it be convenient for you. Please note that the procurement team will be unable to answer any additional questions from 23rd of December until 10th of January. The subject-matter of the procurement About the contracting authority The Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (FCCA) is tasked with ensuring good market performance. The Competition Division removes barriers to competition, ensuring that consumers are offered competitive alternatives. The Consumer Division, on the other hand, ensures that consumers have access to sufficient, accurate, and truthful information for making choices, and that the practices companies use in marketing and their customer relations are appropriate and the contract terms applied by them are reasonable. Further information concerning the contracting authority and especially the Competition Division can be found from our webpage. The FCCA has a need to maintain its capabilities in its case handling and is preparing to start a procurement process. This project goes by the name “Forensic Analysis Research Tool”. The initial subject-matter of the procurement is described in this document. Please note that this document contains the initial needs of the contracting authority. These needs and information provided in this document are subject to change. This document is part of a market consultation, which aims to further increase the knowledge of the contracting authority. Background The contracting authority and mainly its Competition Division has multiple cases in which the contracting authority investigates suspected competition infringements and uses a software (hereinafter also “product” and “system”) to analyze tens, if not hundreds of gigabytes worth of files as evidence. The product is used to analyze the material and at the same time maintain the integrity of it. It is vital that this work can be done simultaneously by multiple users and this requirement applies to individual cases, i.e. multiple users must be able to go through the material of the same case simultaneously, while making markings to the material. Most of the users of the product are either lawyers or economists, whose IT skills vary. Hence the typical user of the product is not a forensic researcher per se. Therefore, the contracting authority values and is looking for simple-to-use product, which the case handlers can effectively use to make juridical evaluations based on the material. Many of the cases are at or are about to be taken to court. During court proceedings it is vital to be able to meet critical deadlines. Because of this, the abovementioned need for simultaneous working on the same case is of utmost importance. The contracting authority foresees that cases with massive amounts of data will not decrease over time. Furthermore, the contracting authority considers it possible that the product could be used already during dawn raids. During dawn raids the contracting authority has even more data to comb through to determine which of the materials should be kept for further analysis. General aspects on the subject-matter of the procurement The contracting authority has its own operating environment (server) for the product. The contracting authority will use this operating environment. Hence the subject-matter of the procurement is not the hardware required for the operating environment. Any notions or questions in relation to the requirements for the operating environment are made solely to be able to determine, whether a separate procurement is needed. The contracting authority seeks an off-the-shelf product with useful features with which the case handlers can inter alia mark or tag individual files, exclude files, use efficient searches, investigate items from a relevant time period, find correlations within the material and share the workload with other case handlers. These requirements are described in separate appendixes. The initial plan is to complete the procurement in Q1/2022. This is to include the starting of production use of the product, if possible. Please note, that this is the initial goal, and it is subject to change. Partially due to this, the contracting authority is looking into finalized products or off-the-shelf products without the need to make localizations or other customizations. It is also worth noting, that most of the cases require years to finish. The goal is to have the same product for years. The initial plan is to have the product in production use for at least three (3) years, with the option to further prolong the contract period. The draft version of the contract reflects this goal. Further remarks on the operating environment The material analyzed with the product contain confidential files acquired by the contracting authority in accordance with the law. Confidentiality is one of the reasons why the material along with the product are now and in the foreseeable future within the contracting authority’s own operating environment, which is not connected to the internet. This entails that the provider of the product will not oversee the operating environment, and that the contracting authority will not grant access to its operating environment. Material and Questions Material along with the questions is made available to anyone interested in the procurement. Additional questions can be sent to
FIT-hankinta@kkv.fi The material can be downloaded as a .zip-package from:
https://www.kkv.fi/forensic-analysis-research-tool-rfi-materials/