The purchase of technology solutions from a contractor who has previously been executed due to ensuring compatibility with technology and copyright but can not be purchased from another contractor shall be subject to the appointment of contractors in accordance with Point c, Clause 1, Article 22 of the Bidding Law.

In 2016, Vietnam-Russia Joint Venture Bank invested in a technology solution that manages customer relationship of contractor A (this solution is purchased by Oracle A, which is licensed by Oracle as a foreign partner). By the end of 2017, some features were not effective as: Language / interface is difficult to use; USER is limited used, if wanting to use, it must pay more than the annual cost of more than USD 40,000; Banks that need to exploit some additional features are not allowed.

With the above limitation, contractor A proposed to provide a new CRM solution of contractor A (not from Oracle) to replace the previous solution.

After 6 months of trial operation, the Bank found the feasibility and effectiveness of this solution better and more suitable. This solution is also compatible with the operating technology system of the Bank to update and exploit data for customer management, and at a much lower cost. Therefore, the Bank decided to buy this solution.

Through receiving and responding system to recommendations of businesses, the bank requests for answers, based on Point c, Clause 1, Article 22 of the Bidding Law, is the Bank allowed to appoint a contractor? How to understand the concept of technology compatibility and copyright in accordance with the legal documents? Does the competitive bidding violate the regulations because Vietnam - Russia Joint Venture Bank only uses the solution purchased from the above contractor?

In this regard, the Ministry of Planning and Investment responded as follows:

Point c, Clause 1, Article 22 of the Bidding Law stipulates that one of the cases where the application of contractor appointment is applied is bidding for provision of consultancy, non-advisory services and procurement of goods that must be purchased from the bidding that has carried out before due to the compatibility of technology and copyright which cannot be purchased from other contractors; bidding packages of research or testing nature; buying intellectual property rights.

Accordingly, for the above question, the purchase of technology solutions from a contractor who has previously done due to ensuring technology compatibility, copyright that cannot be purchased from another contractor is applied only bidding in accordance with the above provisions.

The appointment of contractor must meet the conditions specified in Clause 2, Article 22 of the Bidding Law.

In addition, the form of competitive offering is applied in one of the cases specified in Article 23 of the Bidding Law and Article 57 of Decree No. 63/2014 / ND-CP.

The competent person is responsible for approving the contractor selection plan as prescribed in Point a, Clause 1, Article 74 of the Bidding Law.