Experts and public assistants of the Commissioner for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs in the Moscow Region Vladimir Golovnev share useful information on current topics with the business community. 

The Public Assistant to the Commissioner for Public Procurement Sergey Makoveev has prepared information on what rules are established by law for procurement participants, and what are the features of special and universal prequalification.

Makoveev S. explained that the purpose of any prequalification is to provide preferential access to procurement for entrepreneurs with sufficient experience in fulfilling obligations under contracts. The main message of the legislators is to reduce the risks of possible disruption of orders and causing losses to the budget.

"Special prequalification" is provided for in Part 2 of Article 31 of Law No. 44-FL and is regulated by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated 12.29.2021 No. 2571 (hereinafter referred to as the Resolution). The annex to this document defines cases when additional requirements are imposed on procurement participants. They are different for each case, as is the list of documents that procurement participants must use to confirm their compliance with them. In addition, by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 2571, a deadline has been set during which the experience required by the procurement participant can be formed (the final act of acceptance of fulfilled obligations must be signed no later than 5 years before the deadline for submitting applications for participation in the procurement).

Of course, the most difficult thing in applying the Decree is to correlate the object of purchase with a specific item from the appendix to it. For example, whether the construction of a metal fence is "the construction of a non-capital structure" (item 9 of the Resolution), and maintenance work on security and fire alarm systems or video surveillance systems is "maintenance work on buildings" (item 14 of the Resolution).

When solving such issues, it is worth relying on the practice of reviewing complaints by the antimonopoly authority of the region where the purchase is carried out, advises Sergey Makoveev.

In addition to prequalification, the Resolution establishes the rules of "universal qualification" provided for in Part 2.1. of Article 31 of Law No. 44-FL.

If in the first case, the availability of requirements depends on the object of purchase and on the amount of the initial maximum contract price, then in the second case, the object of purchase does not matter. Universal qualification is required for any purchases with the initial maximum contract price of more than 20 million rubles, unless the customer provided for a "special prequalification", in other words, the object of purchase is not contained in the annex to the Resolution.

In order for the procurement participant to be able to submit a purchase application with the established "additional requirements", it is required to send the documents to the operator of the electronic platform in advance. In case of qualification, when submitting an application, the documents will be sent to the customer automatically, it is not necessary to include them again in the application.

However, entrepreneurs should be careful. Firstly, the documents are submitted on each electronic platform separately. Secondly, the operator does not check the documents, but only evaluates the completeness of their provision. In this regard, the placement of experience documents by the operator does not guarantee that the customer will not find errors in them when considering them. We recommend that you contact lawyers if you have any questions about additional requirements," concluded Sergey Makoveev.