Luxembourg, 17/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - The President of the European Court of First Instance, Bo Vesterdorf, suspended for an indefinite period from 18 November 2004 onwards the European Commission's decision to sign a contract with an IT company headed by Steria-France and HP-Belgium for the development and installation of a large scale information system for visas, referred to as SIS II (for Schengen) and VIS (visas). The contract was challenged by Dutch company Capgemini Nederland B.V., which appealed to the Court of First Instance to annul the contract in question.
On 18 November 2004, Bo Vesterdorf made this initial ruling suspending the signing of the contract until he has had time to issue interim measures to suspend or confirm the signing of the contract while awaiting the ruling on the substance of the case. The parties to the case were heard on 2 December 2004, but unlike what the European Commission agreed for the Microsoft case, the European Commission wanted for the signing of the contract to continue while awaiting the interim measures.
The ruling on the substance of the case is expected to be made relatively quickly (in a few weeks or months time) since the European Court of First Instance agreed to Capgemini's request for the 'simplified' procedure to be used. There have been unconfirmed suggestions that the hearing would be on 2 February 2005.
With regard to the substance of the case, Capgemini requested that the Court of First Instance annul the Commission's decision not to retain the applicant's offer in the relevant call for tender and also to annul the Commission's decision to sign a contract with another tenderer, Steria and HP, invoking a number of alleged violations of the Financial Regulation and Regulation 2342/2002 laying down detailed rules for the implementation of the Financial Regulation. The Court of First Instance notes that: 'In this context the applicant submits that the method of price evaluation chosen by the Commission is unusual in that it … did not result in a fair and equitable outcome.'
In a press release dated 26 October 2004, the European Commission announced the signing of a EUR 40 million contract with two IT companies working with Steria-Belgique, namely Mummert und Partner Deutschland and Primesphere-Luxembourg. The European Commission described the establishment of the SIS II system as a precondition for scrapping border controls between the old and new Member States. The central components of the VIS system are supposed to have been in place at the end of 2006 and at the end of March 2007 for SIS II. Some experts describe this contract as the hard core which other follow-up contracts were expected to be grafted onto in the Member States.