{
  "id": "nexus-ext-1-0034-157259",
  "citation": "Res. 00051-2016 Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo Sección VIII",
  "section": "nexus_decisions",
  "doc_type": "court_decision",
  "title_es": "Improcedencia de nulidad de adjudicación por documentos extranjeros sin legalización",
  "title_en": "Non-nullity of award due to foreign documents lacking legalization",
  "summary_es": "El Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo, Sección VIII, rechaza la demanda de nulidad contra la adjudicación de una licitación pública para la adquisición de un sistema de valoración de riesgos operativos. La empresa actora, Desarrollos Informáticos Deinsa S.A., alegó múltiples vicios en la oferta ganadora de Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., incluyendo la falta de legalización de cartas de referencia extranjeras, supuesta falsedad de información, incumplimiento de requisitos de experiencia y la participación de personal no declarado. El Tribunal examina cada alegato y concluye que ninguno constituye una disconformidad sustancial que amerite la anulación del acto. En particular, aunque determina que dos cartas de referencia provenientes de Ecuador carecían del trámite de legalización requerido por el artículo 294 de la LGAP, el vicio es subsanable y no altera el resultado de la evaluación, ya que la oferta adjudicada aún superaba en puntaje a la de la demandante. Asimismo, desestima los demás argumentos por falta de prueba o por estar referidos a condiciones del cartel que no fueron impugnadas. Se aplican los principios de conservación del acto administrativo y de ausencia de nulidad sin perjuicio.",
  "summary_en": "The Contentious-Administrative Tribunal, Section VIII, dismisses the nullity claim against the award of a public tender for an operational risk valuation system. The plaintiff, Desarrollos Informáticos Deinsa S.A., alleged multiple defects in the winning bid by Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., including lack of legalization of foreign reference letters, alleged falsification of information, failure to meet experience requirements, and participation of undeclared personnel. The Tribunal examines each argument and concludes that none constitutes a substantial non-conformity that would justify annulment. In particular, although it finds that two reference letters from Ecuador lacked the legalization procedure required by Article 294 of the LGAP, the defect is curable and does not alter the evaluation outcome, as the winning bid still outscored the plaintiff's. The other arguments are dismissed for lack of evidence or because they refer to tender conditions that were not challenged. The principles of preservation of administrative acts and no nullity without prejudice are applied.",
  "court_or_agency": "Tribunal Contencioso Administrativo Sección VIII",
  "date": "12/05/2016",
  "year": "2016",
  "topic_ids": [
    "_off-topic"
  ],
  "primary_topic_id": "_off-topic",
  "es_concept_hints": [
    "disconformidad sustancial",
    "principio de conservación del acto administrativo",
    "pas de nullite sans grief",
    "Artículo 294 LGAP",
    "Convención de la Apostilla",
    "cartel de licitación",
    "subsanación",
    "adjudicataria"
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  "keywords_es": [
    "contratación administrativa",
    "adjudicación",
    "legalización de documentos extranjeros",
    "artículo 294 LGAP",
    "disconformidad sustancial",
    "conservación del acto administrativo",
    "pas de nullite sans grief",
    "cartas de referencia",
    "convención de apostilla",
    "oferta incompleta",
    "experiencia del oferente",
    "distribuidor autorizado"
  ],
  "keywords_en": [
    "administrative contracting",
    "award",
    "legalization of foreign documents",
    "Article 294 LGAP",
    "substantial non-conformity",
    "preservation of administrative act",
    "pas de nullite sans grief",
    "reference letters",
    "Apostille Convention",
    "incomplete bid",
    "bidder experience",
    "authorized distributor"
  ],
  "excerpt_es": "Sin embargo y pese a todo lo anterior, concluye este Tribunal que en el caso concreto este vicio no es susceptible de configurar una disconformidad sustancial del acto de adjudicación, ya que en todo caso el motivo del acto se mantiene invariable, pues como se verá seguidamente, la sociedad adjudicada continúa ostentando el puntaje suficiente para considerarse como la opción más idónea para contratar.\n\nAsí las cosas, siendo que la declaración del error cometido por la Administración no se traduce en un cambio sustancial de la situación jurídica de las partes, lo procedente es conservar los efectos del acto de adjudicación conforme el principio a favor acti o de conservación de los actos administrativos (Art. 168 LGAP) y el de conservación de la oferta (Art. 4 LCA). En otras palabras, dado que a nada llevaría acoger la nulidad pretendida por el actor según este vicio, toda vez que al resultar la misma insustancial para el resultado final del acto y resultando improcedente la nulidad por la nulidad misma (principio procesal \"pas de nullite sans grief\" o no hay nulidad sin perjuicio), de conformidad con el artículo 223 de la Ley General de la Administración Pública, lo ajustado en Derecho es declarar improcedente también este alegato, como en efecto se ordena.-",
  "excerpt_en": "However, and despite the above, this Tribunal concludes that in this specific case, this defect is not capable of constituting a substantial non-conformity of the award, since in any case the purpose of the act remains unchanged, as will be seen, the winning company continues to possess sufficient score to be considered the most suitable option.\n\nThus, given that the declaration of the error committed by the Administration does not translate into a substantial change in the legal situation of the parties, the appropriate course is to preserve the effects of the award in accordance with the principle favor acti or preservation of administrative acts (Art. 168 LGAP) and the preservation of the bid (Art. 4 LCA). In other words, since accepting the nullity sought by the plaintiff based on this defect would lead nowhere, as it is immaterial to the final outcome of the act and nullity for its own sake is inadmissible (procedural principle \"pas de nullite sans grief\" or no nullity without prejudice), in conformity with Article 223 of the General Law of Public Administration, the correct course in law is to also declare this argument inadmissible, as is hereby ordered.",
  "outcome": {
    "label_en": "Claim dismissed",
    "label_es": "Demanda rechazada",
    "summary_en": "The nullity claim against the award is dismissed as no substantial defects were proven.",
    "summary_es": "Se rechaza la demanda de nulidad contra la adjudicación al no acreditarse vicios sustanciales que la invaliden."
  },
  "pull_quotes": [
    {
      "context": "Considerando V",
      "quote_en": "The mere submission of the bid shall be understood as an unequivocal manifestation of the bidder's will to contract in full submission to the tender conditions, legal and regulatory provisions in force.",
      "quote_es": "La sola presentación de la oferta, se entenderá como una manifestación inequívoca de la voluntad del oferente de contratar con pleno sometimiento a las condiciones cartelarias, disposiciones legales y reglamentarias vigentes."
    },
    {
      "context": "Cláusula 83 del Cartel",
      "quote_en": "The bidder must be an authorized distributor of the offered product; for this purpose, an original certification from the manufacturer or a notarized certified copy proving such condition shall be provided.",
      "quote_es": "El oferente debe ser distribuidor autorizado de fábrica del producto ofrecido, para tal efecto se deberá aportar una certificación original del fabricante o fotocopia certificada notarialmente que demuestre dicha condición."
    },
    {
      "context": "Artículo 294 LGAP",
      "quote_en": "Any document submitted by interested parties shall comply with the following: a) If issued outside Costa Rica, it must be legalized; and b) If drafted in a foreign language, its translation must be provided, which may be done by the party.",
      "quote_es": "Todo documento presentado por los interesados se ajustará a lo siguiente: a) Si estuviere expedido fuera de Costa Rica, deberá legalizarse; y b) Si estuviere redactado en idioma extranjero, deberá acompañarse su traducción, la cual podrá ser hecha por la parte."
    },
    {
      "context": "Considerando XV",
      "quote_en": "In other words, since accepting the nullity sought by the plaintiff based on this defect would lead nowhere, as it is immaterial to the final outcome of the act and nullity for its own sake is inadmissible (procedural principle \"pas de nullite sans grief\" or no nullity without prejudice).",
      "quote_es": "En otras palabras, dado que a nada llevaría acoger la nulidad pretendida por el actor según este vicio, toda vez que al resultar la misma insustancial para el resultado final del acto y resultando improcedente la nulidad por la nulidad misma (principio procesal \"pas de nullite sans grief\" o no hay nulidad sin perjuicio)."
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  "body_es_text": "“A. SOBRE LA CONDICIÓN DE MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS\r\nS.A. COMO OFERENTE INDIVIDUAL.-\n\r\n\r\n\nV. \r\nCUESTIONAMIENTOS SOBRE LA RELACIÓN DE MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE\r\nSISTEMAS MAS S.A. CON OTRAS EMPRESAS NO OFERENTES.- Para esta Cámara este alegato es de difícil\r\nprecisión, pues la manera utilizada por la representación de la accionante es muy vaga. Según se indica en el escrito de\r\ndemanda del 11 de setiembre de 2013 (f. 162 del\r\nexpediente judicial), la sociedad actora aduce que la empresa Métodos Avanzados\r\nde Sistemas Mas S.A., no presentó oferta conjunta con ninguna otra empresa o\r\nque haya conformado algún consorcio al efecto. Alega que “…es una empresa\r\ncompletamente diferente, con razones sociales diferentes, con domicilios diferentes,\r\na las empresas ecuatorianas Metodos Avanzados\r\nIndustriales y Sistemas Cognos CIA. LTDA., que es la\r\núnica conocida como Grupo Mas, tal y como consta en la documentación oficial\r\ndel Servicio de Rentas Internas de Ecuador, establecida en 1995 y diferente\r\ntambién a la empresa Soluciones Tecnológicas para Riesgos S.A. Sotemrisa.” Finalmente, termina indicando sobre este\r\npunto que en la oferta no consta “…conformación de un consorcio con las\r\ncitadas empresas ecuatorianas, quienes son las que han llevado a cabo las\r\nimplementaciones del software OpRisk fuera de Costa\r\nRica…” Al respecto, para este Tribunal, en primer lugar, del expediente\r\nadministrativo de la licitación ha quedado claro que la oferta fue presentada\r\nformalmente como una oferta individual. Asimismo, no se ha tenido por probado\r\nla existencia de un grupo económico denominado “Grupo Mas”,\r\nni tampoco relación alguna de Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. con\r\nsociedades extranjeras, ni mucho que supuestas sociedades extranjeras hubieran\r\nofrecido o asumido algún compromiso contractual con alguna de las partes\r\ndemandadas. De esta manera, según se observa a folio 444 del expediente\r\nadministrativo, la oferta fue suscrita por “…Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas\r\nS.A. en adelante denominado Grupo Mas, con cédula de personería jurídica número\r\n3-101-264524, actuando por medio de su Apoderado Generalísimo, el Ing. Giovanni\r\nMazzari…”. Así, induce este Tribunal, a partir de\r\nestos elementos, que el único responsable frente a la Administración\r\ncontratante sería dicha sociedad y que sólo sobre ésta se podrían generar los\r\nefectos propios de la relación contractual. El artículo 61 del Reglamento a la\r\nLey de Contratación Administrativa nos indica sobre la oferta: “La oferta es\r\nla manifestación de voluntad del participante, dirigida a la Administración, a\r\nfin de celebrar un contrato con ella, conforme a las estipulaciones cartelarias.” Y según el párrafo segundo del artículo\r\n66 de ese cuerpo normativo: “La sola presentación de la oferta, se entenderá\r\ncomo una manifestación inequívoca de la voluntad del oferente de contratar con\r\npleno sometimiento a las condiciones cartelarias,\r\ndisposiciones legales y reglamentarias vigentes. La sumisión operará de pleno\r\nderecho, e implicará la incorporación dentro del contenido de la relación\r\ncontractual de las normas constitucionales, de la Ley de Contratación\r\nAdministrativa, el presente Reglamento, el Reglamento Institucional y el\r\ncartel.” Es decir, que la voluntad de contratar sólo le puede ser endilgada\r\na la sociedad Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A.. Ahora\r\nbien, pese a que es difícil comprender el alcance del vicio en cuestión, esta\r\nCámara puede colegir que el mismo consiste en que se admitiera y valoraran\r\nofrecimientos contractuales a personas jurídicas que no están participando como\r\noferentes y que dicha evaluación sea asignada a un oferente en particular, en\r\ndemérito de la libre concurrencia y la igualdad de trato, o bien, que pudieran\r\nexistir compromisos contractuales asumidos por terceros que no formen parte del\r\ncontrato, de manera que pudiese resultar perjudicada la Administración al no\r\ncontar con una contraparte a quien exigir responsabilidad. No obstante, para\r\neste Tribunal, según se desprende de la oferta (hecho probado número 11), de la\r\nsubsanación presentada (ver hecho probado número 17) e incluso de la segunda\r\nnota suscrita por Sotemrisa (ver hecho probado número\r\n26), en todo momento la única persona responsable frente a la Administración\r\ncontratante ha sido Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Más S.A., no hay\r\nparticipación de un tercero en la formación del contrato, ni tampoco\r\ncompromisos contractuales que hayan sido asumidos por terceras personas, ni\r\ntampoco se desprende que se hubiera sumado puntaje alguno a la Adjudicataria\r\nproducto de la experiencia o referencia de otra persona que no sea ésta y en lo\r\nque corresponde al producto ofertado, la Adjudicataria contaba con la\r\nlegitimación y el derecho suficientes para ofrecer y pactar la venta,\r\ninstalación e implementación del producto informático “GRS\r\nOpRisk”. Por consiguiente, no se observa cómo en el\r\nmarco de la contratación administrativa se hubiera podido establecer alguna\r\nsituación jurídica que perjudicara a los demás oferentes o al Banco Crédito\r\nAgrícola de Cartago. La posición asumida por la accionante\r\nimplicaría que únicamente el fabricante de un producto pueda llevar adelante su\r\ncomercialización, cuando en la realidad económica y jurídica esto no es así. Lo\r\nque tenía que asegurar la Administración contratante era la existencia del\r\nderecho de disposición del producto por parte del oferente, lo cual fue\r\ndebidamente corroborado. Sobre este punto, volveremos\r\nmás adelante.- \n\r\n\r\n\nB.- SOBRE LA SUPUESTA INCOMPLETEZ\r\nDE LA OFERTA DE MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A.-\n\r\n\r\n\nVI. \r\nRESPECTO DE LA LICENCIA “SHAREPOINT”.- La sociedad actora cita como parte de sus\r\nfundamentos, tanto en vía administrativo como jurisdiccional, la resolución\r\nadministrativa de la Contraloría General de la República, número R-DCA-059-2011 de las 10:00 del 02 de febrero de 2011 (f. 1053 a 1063 del expediente\r\nadministrativo y 32 a\r\n42 del expediente judicial), de la cual se puede extraer lo siguiente: “…resulta\r\ncontrario al principio de eficiencia y al principio de igualdad de las ofertas que\r\nla Administración deba proceder a interpretar o terminar de conformar la oferta\r\ncon elementos, componentes o datos ausentes en el contenido de la oferta,\r\ncon lo que se lesionaría el principio de igualdad, de frente a oferentes que\r\nincluyeron en sus plicas la totalidad de los elementos necesarios […] De\r\ncara a la solución del caso bajo análisis, se tiene que la Administración no\r\ntuvo conocimiento de la necesidad de contar con el componente Mono Project,\r\nsino hasta la manifestación que realiza la empresa apelante y la posterior\r\nrespuesta de parte de la empresa adjudicataria, ya que al no haberla incluido,\r\ncotizado, ni tan siquiera mencionado en su oferta, no existía obligación de\r\nparte de la empresa adjudicataria de cumplir con su entrega y por el contrario\r\ndeja a la Administración en una posición de desventaja al no haber manifestado\r\nen forma clara antes de la apertura de las ofertas la forma mediante la cual\r\npretendía cumplir con el objeto requerido por la Administración…” (Resaltado\r\nno es del original) Aquí se sintetiza, precisamente, una de las principales\r\nlíneas argumentativas que sostuvo la actora durante el proceso, en particular\r\ndurante el juicio oral y público: Pretende la nulidad del acto de adjudicación\r\npor violación a los principios de libre concurrencia, igualdad, eficacia y\r\neficiencia el hecho de que, pese a estar la Adjudicada en la obligación de\r\naportar todas las licencias necesarias para el pleno funcionamiento de su\r\nherramienta informática, como lo era la licencia Sharepoint,\r\nel Banco demandado en una actitud de favorecimiento\r\nhacia esa empresa –así lo alega explícitamente la demandante-, procedió a\r\ncompletar la oferta de Métodos Avanzados con la adquisición de dicha licencia,\r\nque asimismo calificó de tratarse de una copia ilegal, pues aduce que la\r\nversión utilizada por los demandados no estaba disponible en el mercado, por lo\r\nque asegura se trataba de una versión “pirata” o ilegal de dicho programa\r\ninformático. Ahora bien, atendidos los argumentos y las pruebas aportadas, esta\r\nCámara ha tenido por demostrado en los hecho s probados número 1, 2, 9, 24, 34\r\ny 35, que el Banco demandado había considerado desde las audiencias previas\r\nrelativas al estudio de mercado y que quedó constando en la decisión inicial,\r\nque dentro de las alternativas informáticas que se habían tomado en cuenta, se\r\nencontraba la herramienta informática OpRisk, con\r\nla característica “Sharepoint Point\r\nServer 2007”,\r\nla cual se consideró: “…Las aplicaciones se encuentran desarrolladas\r\nbajo lenguajes de programación de vanguardia. Por lo que no se tendría\r\ninconveniente para su implementación…” Es decir, que independientemente\r\nde cualquier otro argumento, ya el Banco había establecido que este sistema\r\npodía ser implementado sin problema alguno, incluso se tenía conocimiento del\r\nrequisito de que esa opción informática contara con el licenciamiento de la\r\naplicación “Sharepoint”, desde el mismo comienzo de\r\nla contratación . Por este motivo, no resulta\r\naplicable el antecedente administrativo de la Contraloría General de la\r\nRepública, sobre el que evidentemente se fundamenta la parte actora, ya que en\r\neste caso la Administración demandada, a diferencia de lo allí ocurrido, sí\r\ntenía conocimiento de esa situación, no se trató por consiguiente de un\r\nelemento novedoso o el ocultamiento de una información que pudiera dejar al\r\nBanco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago en una “posición de desventaja”. Igualmente\r\npara los oferentes, quienes podían consultar esta información pública,\r\ndisponible en el expediente administrativo de la contratación, de conformidad\r\ncon los artículos 8 y 11 del Reglamento a la Ley de Contratación\r\nAdministrativa, por lo que tampoco se concretó un trato discriminatorio en su\r\ncontra, o desde el punto de vista del actor, de un favorecimiento\r\nde la Adjudicataria. Esto terminó por ser abundantemente reforzado -en criterio\r\nde este Tribunal-, con la declaración que de manera consistente y concluyente\r\nfue realizada por el testigo funcionario Marco Cordero Valverde durante el\r\njuicio oral y público (ver hechos probados número 34 y 35), en cuanto a que la\r\nadquisición de la licencia \"Sharepoint\"\r\nobedeció a necesidades institucionales y no a propósito de la contratación\r\nadministrativa objeto de este proceso.-\n\r\n\r\n\nVII. \r\nLA DISPONIBILIDAD QUE TENÍA DICHA SOCIEDAD RESPECTO DE LA LICENCIA\r\nDEL PRODUCTO “GRS OPRISK”.- En criterio del actor, también la oferta\r\nse encontraba incompleta porque siendo Soluciones Tecnológicas para Riesgos\r\nS.A. Sotemrisa el propietario de los derechos de\r\nautor del producto “GRS OpRisk”\r\ny sin que existiera en el expediente administrativo ninguna cesión de esos\r\nderechos, la empresa adjudicada Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., no\r\npodía hacer una entrega legal de los códigos fuente de ese sistema. El Banco\r\ndemandado por su parte señaló que en diversas ocasiones, la adjudicada acreditó\r\nque sí contaba con el derecho para entregar el código fuente de la aplicación “GRS OpRisk”. En criterio de este\r\nTribunal, lleva razón la representación del Banco demandado, ya que sobre este\r\npunto la cláusula 83 del Cartel, denominada como “Condición Indispensable”,\r\nestablecía que: “El oferente debe ser distribuidor autorizado de\r\nfábrica del producto ofrecido, para tal efecto se deberá aportar una\r\ncertificación original del fabricante o fotocopia certificada notarialmente que\r\ndemuestre dicha condición. El oferente deberá presentar constancia mediante\r\ndeclaración jurada protocolizada de ser dueño, o estar debidamente\r\nautorizado para usar y comercializar las licencias de software de las\r\ncuales hará uso para prestar los servicios al Banco.” (Resaltado no es del\r\noriginal). La redacción de este artículo del Cartel no resulta la más adecuada,\r\npues carece de precisión a la hora de establecer cómo se acredita la condición\r\nde distribuidor. Para los suscritos, lo que enuncia esta cláusula son dos\r\nmaneras distintas de comprobar dicha condición: Mediante certificación emitida\r\npor el fabricante o, por medio de una declaración jurada. Nótese también que\r\nhay una confusión en torno a la condición de distribuidor, sin embargo, lo que\r\ninteresa es acreditar la posibilidad de vender a otros el programa informático\r\nen cuestión, independientemente de la condición de fabricante, y esto sí lo\r\ndemostró la codemandada Métodos Avanzados S.A., toda vez que el cumplimiento de\r\nesta condición cartelaria se puede observar, primero\r\nen la oferta, concretamente, con los documentos que corren a folios 432\r\n(declaración jurada) y 431 del expediente administrativo, segundo, en la\r\nsubsanación prevenida por el Banco, mediante la declaración jurada a folio 822\r\ndel expediente administrativo y finalmente, mediante la nota aportada por\r\nMétodos Avanzados el día 12 de de diciembre de 2011, de folios 1129 a 1131 del expediente\r\nadministrativo (ver hecho probado número 26). Además, se hace hincapié en lo ya\r\nmanifestado líneas atrás, respecto a que la posición de la actora se basa en\r\nque únicamente el fabricante de un bien puede transmitir el derecho a su uso,\r\ncuando -como en este caso- es posible recurrir a la figura del distribuidor,\r\nquien sin ser productor “…se hace cargo de los riesgos de negociar con\r\naquellos, los consumidores (terceros), por su propia cuenta y a nombre propio…”\r\nlos bienes producidos o fabricados por aquel (Sentencia de la Sala Primera\r\nnúmero 606-F-S1-2013 de las 08:50 horas del 16 de mayo de 2013). Así las cosas,\r\nno lleva razón la sociedad accionante, toda vez que\r\nla empresa adjudicada sí pudo corroborar durante el trámite de la contratación\r\nadministrativo que ostentaba el derecho y la legitimación para disponer del\r\nsoftware “GRS OpRisk”, tan\r\nes así que finalmente Métodos Avanzados hizo entrega material de los códigos\r\nfuente, los manuales de funcionalidad y los manuales técnicos, permaneciendo\r\nlos primeros en una de las cajitas de seguridad del Banco, todo lo cual fue\r\ndebidamente revisado por los funcionarios del Área Técnica de esa Institución,\r\na fin de verificar que correspondiera con el sistema instalado (ver hecho\r\nprobado n° 33). Así las cosas, lo procedente\r\nes rechazar por improcedente el vicio así aducido.-\n\r\n\r\n\nVIII. \r\nLA ACREDITACIÓN DEL PERSONAL ENCARGADO DE LA IMPLEMENTACIÓN DEL\r\nSISTEMA.- Alega\r\nla representación de la sociedad actora que el especialista designado en la\r\noferta de Métodos Avanzados para la implementación del sistema “GRS OpRisk”, el señor Vladimir Guzman Mendoza, no fue\r\nquien en la realidad se encargó de llevar a cabo la implementación del sistema\r\nofertado, sino una señora llamada Katia Ruales, que no fue indicada en la\r\noferta y que no es empleada de la codemandada y por el contrario, es una\r\nfuncionaria de la empresa Sotemrisa, sociedad\r\ndomiciliada en Ecuador, empresa que no participó de la oferta. Para este\r\nTribunal, este línea de argumentación tampoco acredita la disconformidad\r\nsustancial con el ordenamiento jurídico del acto de adjudicación, ya que como\r\nse ha tenido por demostrado en los hechos probados n°\r\n15 y 17, fue en la etapa de subsanación y aclaración de la oferta de Métodos\r\nAvanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., donde se consignó que la señora Katia Ruales\r\nMaldonado, sería parte del equipo encargado de la implementación del sistema. En\r\neste sentido, este Tribunal desea dejar claro a las partes, que examinado el\r\ninterrogatorio al que fue sometida la testigo Grettel\r\nGranados Chavez respecto de este punto (ver grabación\r\nde juicio oral y público a partir de las 14:36:47), concretamente, sobre la\r\nintervención que tuvo la señora Katia Ruales en la implementación del sistema “GRS OpRisk”, el mismo pierde\r\nvalor, porque se basa en un reconocimiento de documentos centrado solamente en\r\nuna parte de la oferta de Métodos Avanzados, cuando como ya se ha dicho, esta\r\ninformación consta con precisión en el documento de aclaración, tal y como lo\r\nhizo ver la testigo a la abogada de la sociedad demandante, pero sin que\r\npudiera precisar el documento en el expediente administrativo. Asimismo, se\r\ndeja la observación de que a folio 431 del expediente administrativo, en la\r\nprimera nota de la empresa Soluciones Tecnológicas para Riesgos S.A. o Sotemrisa, el señor Xavier Merino, presidente de esa\r\nsociedad, indicó que Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., contaba con el\r\npersonal certificado para implementar el producto, entre el cual se encontraba\r\nla señora Katia Ruales. Así las cosas, siendo que en su momento y de manera\r\ntransparente, quedó acreditado en el expediente de la contratación que la\r\nseñora Katia Ruales Maldonado participaría en el equipo técnico de\r\nimplementación del sistema “GRS OpRisk”\r\ny por lo tanto, no se trataría de una información que se hubiera ocultado\r\ndeliberada y sorpresivamente y generando por allí, una desigualdad de trato con\r\nlos demás oferentes o bien, un comportamiento de mala fe de parte de la empresa\r\nadjudicada para con la Administración contratante, lo procedente es desestimar también\r\neste alegato y continuar con el conocimiento de los restantes puntos de esta\r\ndemanda.- \n\r\n\r\n\nC.- SOBRE LA ACREDITACIÓN Y CALIFICACIÓN DEL RUBRO DE EXPERIENCIA .- \n\r\n\r\n\nIX. \r\nRESPECTO DE QUE LA EMPRESA CONTRATISTA TUVIERA QUE OSTENTAR EL\r\nCARÁCTER DE “DESARROLLADORA” DE SOFTWARE.- La empresa accionante\r\nsostuvo que con esta contratación administrativa, se buscaba una firma que\r\ntuviera una condición de “desarrolladora” de software y esta circunstancia, en\r\nsu opinión, aplicaba para varios efectos. El principal de estos efectos, era el\r\nacreditar la experiencia de la firma oferente, no obstante, también incumbía\r\npara otras cuestiones, por ejemplo, como la capacidad de disponer del software\r\n“GRS OpRisk”, sin embargo,\r\ncomo ya estos otros temas fueron resueltos o serán objeto de un pronunciamiento\r\nparticular no serán tomados en cuenta a la hora de resolver esta línea\r\nargumentativa, la cual se centrará en lo tocante al rubro de la experiencia. En\r\notras palabras, se examinará ese carácter de firma “desarrolladora” de\r\nsoftware, únicamente en cuanto al alegato de que en la etapa de evaluación de\r\nofertas, lo que tenía que tomarse en cuenta era únicamente la experiencia en el\r\ndesarrollo de productos informáticos. Al respecto, la tesis de la parte actora\r\nqueda desvirtuada por el mismo motivo con base en el cual la Administración\r\ncontratante acogió parcialmente el recurso de revocatoria promovido por\r\nDesarrollos Informáticos Deinsa S.A.: La empresa\r\nadjudicada presentó la declaración jurada que era el requisito establecido en\r\nel cartel para acreditar este rubro. En la resolución administrativa de la\r\nSubgerencia general del Banco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago, de las 15:00 horas\r\ndel 14 de diciembre de 2011 (ver hecho probado n°\r\n27), se estableció en lo que interesa: “…Ahora bien, en relación con la\r\nexperiencia solicitada en el punto 100, de conformidad con la revisión del\r\nexpediente de la contratación al recurrente únicamente se le asignaron 5\r\npuntos, sin embargo tomando en consideración que la experiencia señalada en\r\nel punto 100 iba a ser corroborada mediante una declaración jurada, es claro\r\nque hubo un error en la asignación de puntos, toda vez que el recurrente en\r\nfolios 781 a\r\n782, procede a brindar la declaración jurada solicitada por el cartel,\r\nrazón por la cual también se hacía acreedor a los otros 15 puntos que establece\r\nel factor…” (f. 1135 del expediente administrativo. Resaltado no es del\r\noriginal) En este sentido, es posible apreciar en el expediente administrativo\r\nde la contratación, la declaración jurada del representante de la sociedad\r\nMétodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., la cual corre a folio 432 e indica lo\r\nsolicitado en el punto 100 del Cartel: una experiencia de 4 años en el\r\ndesarrollo de aplicaciones de valoración de riesgos operativos en los Bancos de\r\nCosta Rica, General Rumiñahui y Pichincha. Asimismo se adjuntan los contactos,\r\nlos cuales fueron corroborados por la Administración contratante. Al respecto,\r\nla testigo Grettel Granados Chavez,\r\nfuncionaria del Área de Riesgo Operativo de la Dirección de Riesgo del Banco\r\ndemandado y encargada del proceso de contratación administrativa en cuestión,\r\ndeclaró durante el juicio oral y público (ver grabación del juicio oral y\r\npúblico a partir de las 14:26:42 horas), que se asignó la puntuación a Métodos\r\nAvanzados correspondiente a los rubros de experiencia y referencias porque se\r\nestimó que cumplía con lo exigido en el cartel, en lo relativo a tres años de\r\nexperiencia en el desarrollo de sistemas de valoración de riesgo operativo, lo\r\ncual verificaron “…con la declaración que se solicitaron y con las\r\nreferencias que hacía mención…” (grabación de juicio oral y público de las\r\n14:26:59 horas a las 14:27:08 horas) \n\r\n\r\n\nX. \r\nCONTINUACIÓN.- Llama la atención del Tribunal que en el cartel no se hubiera\r\nprecisado la admisibilidad de la oferta o que se afectara su porcentaje de\r\nevaluación, por la condición de que se tratase o no de una empresa\r\n“desarrolladora de software”, en cuyo caso lo deseable hubiera sido parámetros\r\nexternos y objetivos para delimitar ese concepto, empezando como mínimo por\r\nhaber definido esa noción. Sin embargo, eso no fue así, el numeral 72 del\r\nCartel de licitación de manera muy limitada, se circunscribió a establecer la\r\nsiguiente regla: “…El oferente deberá poseer una experiencia mínima de\r\ntres años en el desarrollo de aplicaciones en sistemas de valoración de\r\nRiesgos Operativo, a nivel tanto nacional como internacional. Se deberá\r\naportar una declaración jurada en la conste los años de experiencia\r\ndel oferente…” De este modo, todos los oferentes -en igualdad de\r\ncondiciones-, cumplieron así con ese requisito de admisibilidad con la sola\r\npresentación de la declaración jurada, lo cual efectivamente ocurrió en el caso\r\nde Métodos Avanzados, tal y como se explicó en el considerando anterior. También,\r\nnota el Tribunal que pese a constituir el más importante de sus argumentos y\r\npor tanto su carga procesal más relevante, la parte actora, en primer lugar,\r\ntampoco demostró desde una perspectiva técnica, en qué consistía esa noción y\r\nporqué lo actuado por la Administración es contrario a la legalidad técnica, al\r\natribuir ese carácter a quien no lo posee y en segundo lugar, quizás lo más\r\ngrave de todo, avocó su esfuerzo litigioso en un aspecto ajeno al acto de\r\nadjudicación, pues por el contrario se trata de un tema propio del cartel de la\r\nlicitación, pues es allí donde se estableció el requisito. En ese sentido y\r\nprincipalmente, a partir de la explicación dada por la testigo Grettel Granados Chaves (ver hechos probados números 1, 2,\r\n4, 5, 6, 7, 37), en condición de funcionaria del órgano cuya necesidad se\r\nintentaba solventar y una de las encargadas de la contratación, este Tribunal\r\nha palpado que el posible origen de la disconformidad apuntada aquí por la\r\nActora, se centra en el equívoco tratamiento que en el cartel dio el Banco a\r\nesta condición de ser “desarrollador de software” y la trascendencia de esto\r\npara la contratación, pues si como manifestó la testigo el interés del Banco\r\nradicaba en acreditar la experiencia que tenía el oferente “…sobre el\r\nsistema (…) sobre los parámetros que requería por debajo el sistema…”, surge\r\nentonces la duda: ¿Se trataba realmente de una condición mínima, invariable\r\ny fundamental para satisfacer la necesidad de la Administración? No\r\nobstante tratarse de un cuestionamiento razonable, los suscritos consideramos\r\nque esto no es parte del objeto del presente proceso, pues la parte actora NO\r\nimpugnó en momento alguno el cartel de licitación, ni tampoco ha derivado\r\npretensión alguna al respecto, quedando incólumes las condiciones indicadas en\r\nel cartel.- \n\r\n\r\n\nXI. \r\nEN SÍNTESIS.- En\r\nresumen de este punto, ésta Cámara desea dejar claramente establecido para las\r\npartes que la falta o no de la condición de ser “desarrolladora de software” de\r\nparte de Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. no es un vicio que afecte el acto\r\nde adjudicación, toda vez que, primero, dicha sociedad cumplió con lo requerido\r\nal respecto en el cartel, lo cual fue además corroborado por la Administración\r\ny en segundo, que ir más allá de esto, implica en realidad –pese a toda la\r\nlabor litigiosa desempeñada a lo largo del proceso- un esfuerzo innecesario e\r\ninútil, pues la misma parte actora entabló su demanda sobre la adjudicación, NO\r\nsobre el cartel de la licitación, que es donde se determinó el requisito y la\r\nmanera de cumplirlo y donde de manera equívoca se utilizó el término de\r\n“desarrollo” de software a partir de una falta de definición del mismo y de\r\nparámetros objetivos para su verificación. Consecuentemente, al resulta\r\nimprocedente el vicio aducido, continuará esta Cámara con el análisis de los\r\nrestantes puntos.- \n\r\n\r\n\nXII. \r\nSOBRE LA SUPUESTA ACREDITACIÓN DE EXPERIENCIA DE TERCEROS A LA\r\nOFERTA DE MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A..- La representación de la sociedad demandante alegó en las\r\nconclusiones del juicio oral y público, que la firma adjudicada, Métodos\r\nAvanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. “…no presentó ningún consorcio a la hora,\r\neste, de presentar la licitación, ni de participar con la empresa aquí\r\ncodemandada. Esas dos empresas no comparten representantes, no comparten\r\nnombres, no comparten razones sociales. Es una empresa creada hasta el año\r\n2010, cuando se pedía una experiencia de tres años, lo cual no cumplía, puesto\r\nque no hay tres años de experiencia del 2010 al 2011…” (grabación del\r\njuicio oral y público a partir de las 15:58:48 horas) Ahora bien, sobre este\r\npunto, ya parcialmente hicimos referencia cuando se resolvió el primero de los\r\nalegatos de nulidad, no obstante, valga decir que analizada la oferta, así como\r\nel acto de adjudicación y el contrato administrativo finalmente suscrito, no se\r\nobserva, ni tampoco se ha tenido por demostrado, que terceras personas, físicas\r\no jurídicas, nacionales o extranjeras, hubieran asumido compromisos\r\ncontractuales o realizado ofrecimientos dentro de la oferta presentada por\r\nMétodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A.. Tampoco se colige, ni se ha tenido por\r\nprobado que en la declaración jurada a folio 432 del expediente administrativo,\r\npresentada con la oferta, dicha empresa solicitara o declarara como parte de su\r\nexperiencia en el negocio, la experiencia de terceros. Finalmente y más\r\nimportante aún, para esta Cámara no se demostró en el proceso, que tanto las\r\ndeclaraciones juradas como las cartas de referencia fueran falsas, por lo que\r\nno es posible jurídicamente desvirtuar la experiencia que por ese medio logró comprobar\r\nla empresa adjudicada. De esta manera, resulta extraño para este Tribunal que\r\nla Compañía accionante reclame esto como un vicio del\r\nacto de adjudicación, cuando a todas luces esto no ha sucedido o al menos –se\r\nreitera-, no se ha aportado prueba en ese sentido. Por esta razón, tampoco\r\naplica al caso concreto y en la forma en que ha sido aducido por la sociedad\r\nactora, el pronunciamiento de la Contraloría General de la República número R-DCA-522-2008 de las 08:00 horas del 03 de octubre de 2008. Entonces,\r\nal resultar este alegato abiertamente improcedente, se rechaza el mismo.-\n\r\n\r\n\nD.- SOBRE LA ACREDITACIÓN Y CALIFICACIÓN DEL RUBRO DE REFERENCIAS : \n\r\n\r\n\nXIII. \r\nACERCA DE LAS FORMALIDADES DE LOS DOCUMENTOS PRIVADOS APORTADOS\r\nCON LA OFERTA DE MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A.- La representación de la parte actora\r\ncuestionó que la documentación aportada con la oferta, concretamente, las\r\ncartas de referencia y la nota de Sotemrisa, así como\r\nla segunda nota de ésta última, documentos que están visibles a folios 421 a 431 y 1130 del\r\nexpediente administrativo, no cumplieron con los respectivo requisitos de\r\nlegalización, por tratarse de documentos provenientes del extranjero. Alegó en\r\nlas conclusiones: “…tenemos que sin cumplir los requisitos que la ley\r\nestablece, el Código, específicamente, el Código Procesal Civil, el Código\r\nNotarial en su artículo 14, y el Código de Comercio, se aceptan cartas y\r\ndocumentos que no vienen totalmente legalizados, que no vienen cumpliendo con\r\nla cadena de legalidad que establece nuestro…nuestra legislación. Ello también\r\nse comprueba con el dicho del, de la testigo, de bancredito,\r\ndonde afirma que efectivamente, pues, ella nunca vio esas autenticaciones, que\r\nfueron realizadas por un notario público costarricense y si los documentos\r\nvenían del extranjero, pues debían haber sido, venidos apostillados o consularizados para que surtieran, este, legalidad aquí en\r\nCosta Rica…” (grabación del juicio oral y público de las 15:53:32 horas a\r\nlas 15:54:22 horas) La representación del Banco demandado se limitó a indicar\r\nsobre este punto, que esta documentación venía certificada por un notario\r\npúblico, no obstante lo cual, ellos procedieron a verificar directamente con\r\nlos Bancos extranjeros la veracidad de la información contenida en los datos. Así\r\nlas cosas y analizados los argumentos y pruebas existentes, este Tribunal\r\nconsidera que lleva parcialmente la razón la parte actora respecto a este\r\npunto, sin embargo, como se verá esto no conduce a un cambio sustancial en la\r\nconducta impugnada y por tanto, resulta intrascendente para lo pretendido por\r\nla sociedad actora. Veamos, en la versión definitiva del cartel de licitación,\r\nse estableció lo siguiente al respecto: “101. Referencias del oferente en la\r\nimplementación de Sistemas de Valoración de Riesgos Operativos. (Valor 30\r\npuntos) Se asignarán 10 puntos al oferente que presente 3 cartas de\r\nreferencia que demuestre la experiencia en el desarrollo y soporte de\r\nsistemas de Valoración de Riesgos Operativos. Se asignarán 20 puntos al\r\noferente que presente 1 carta de referencia que demuestre la experiencia en\r\nel desarrollo y soporte de sistema de Valoración de Riesgos Operativos en\r\ninstituciones bancarias públicas o privadas (a nivel nacional o internacional).\r\nSe asignará la máxima puntuación (30 puntos) al oferente que de cumplimiento a\r\nlos dos puntos anteriores, es decir que presente 3 cartas de referencia, en\r\ndonde una o más referencias corresponda a instituciones bancarias\r\npúblicas o privadas (a nivel nacional o internacional) en el desarrollo y\r\nsoporte de sistema de Valoración de Riesgos Operativos. Cada carta de\r\nreferencia deberá ser original o copia certificada por un notario de que la\r\nmisma es copia fiel del original que se tuvo a la vista, con fecha de\r\nemisión no mayor a 6 meses anteriores a la fecha de apertura de las ofertas. Además,\r\ndeberá indicar nombre de la empresa, número de teléfono, nombre y firma del\r\ncontacto el cargo desempeñado y se deberá hacer referencia expresa a la calidad\r\n(bajo, medio, alto) del servicio brindado. El Banco se reserva el derecho de\r\nvalidar estas cartas de referencias. Si la información suministrada no\r\ncoincidiera con la consulta realizada, esta referencia será desechada y no será\r\ntomada en cuenta para la calificación de la oferta.” (Resaltado no es del\r\noriginal). Este numeral se relaciona con el artículo 73, que establece como\r\nrequisito de admisibilidad: “…haber implementado el sistema ofrecido en al\r\nmenos una entidad pública del sistema Financiero Nacional…” para lo cual “…se\r\ndeberán aportar las cartas de referencia de las instituciones…”. Se observa\r\nasí, que el Banco pese a que estableció que podrían presentarse cartas de\r\nreferencia del extranjero, omitió indicar en el Cartel la forma bajo la cual\r\ndebían ser presentadas, de manera tal que se tiene que recurrir al ordenamiento\r\njurídico a fin de determinar las reglas aplicables a las formalidades que desde\r\nun principio, debían de satisfacer dichas cartas, a fin de que pudieran tener\r\nefectos jurídicos en Costa Rica. En primer lugar, valga precisar que la parte\r\nactora ha dirigido este vicio exclusivamente sobre los documentos realizados en\r\nel extranjero, con lo cual podemos dejar por fuera la carta de referencia\r\nsuscrita por Alejandro Sebiani en representación del\r\nBanco de Costa Rica (f. 427 del expediente administrativo) y la segunda nota de\r\nSotemrisa (f. 1130 del expediente administrativo),\r\nésta última pues no se ha tenido por demostrado que la misma hubiera sido\r\nrealizada fuera del país. Se advierte que en criterio de este Tribunal esta\r\ncircunstancia a su vez, permite subsanar lo acontecido con la primera nota de Sotemrisa de fecha 30 de agosto de 2011, por las razones\r\nque se dirán un poco más adelante.- \n\r\n\r\n\nXIV. \r\nCONTINUACIÓN.- En segundo lugar, se hace ver que la parte actora también erra en alegar que estos documentos confeccionados en el extranjero\r\ndebían ser “apostillados”, esto porque los documentos en cuestión no son de\r\ncarácter público, ya que no fueron emitidos por autoridad pública extranjera o\r\npor personas que ostenten un poder público para ello. En este sentido, el\r\nartículo 1 de la Convención para la eliminación del recurso de legalización\r\npara los documentos públicos extranjeros o Convención de la Apostilla,\r\nratificada por nuestro país mediante Ley N° 8923 del\r\n22 de febrero de 2011, establece: “La presente Convención se aplicará a documentos\r\npúblicos que hayan sido ejecutados en el territorio de un Estado\r\ncontratante y que deban ser mostrados en el territorio de otro Estado\r\ncontratante. Para propósitos de la presente Convención, los siguientes se\r\nconsideran como documentos públicos: a) documentos provenientes de una\r\nautoridad o un oficial conectado con las cortes o tribunales del Estado,\r\nincluyendo aquellos provenientes de un fiscal, un escribano de la corte o un notificador (\"huissier de justice\"); b) documentos administrativos; c) actas\r\nnotariales; d) certificados oficiales puestos en documentos firmados por\r\npersonas en su calidad privada, tales como certificados oficiales que consignan\r\nel registro de un documento o el hecho de que era existente en determinada\r\nfecha y autenticaciones oficiales y notariales de firmas. Sin embargo, la\r\npresente Convención no se aplicará: a) a documentos ejecutados por agentes\r\nconsulares o diplomáticos; b) a documentos administrativos que traten\r\ndirectamente con operaciones comerciales o aduanales.” (Resaltado no es del\r\noriginal) De esta manera, siendo que no se ha tenido por demostrado que los\r\ndocumentos en cuestión constituyan documentos públicos, en particular, bajo los\r\ntérminos del numeral de cita, es posible aseverar que efectivamente los mismos no\r\ndebían ser sometidos a “apostillado”, es decir, al trámite previsto en ese\r\ninstrumento jurídico internacional. Finalmente, queda por revisar si\r\nconstituyendo entonces documentos privados que contienen a lo sumo un acto\r\njurídico, en tanto por la declaración allí contenida se espera que los mismos\r\ntengan un efecto jurídico en Costa Rica, consistente en acreditar un requisito\r\nde una contratación administrativa, dichos documentos debían ser sometidos o no\r\na un trámite de legalización, sea ésta por la vía diplomática-consular o bien,\r\nde orden notarial. Esta es, precisamente, la tesis de la parte accionante, la cual sin embargo no establece una fundamentación jurídica sólida, a lo sumo invoca el numeral\r\n14 del Código Notarial, referente a la función notarial del personal consular\r\ndel servicio exterior de la República, sin embargo, en ninguno de estos cuerpos\r\nnormativos, ni tampoco siquiera en la Ley N° 46-A del\r\n07 de julio de 1925, Ley Orgánica del Servicio Consular, siguiendo la línea\r\nfijada por la representación de la actora, se establece el deber de someter los\r\ndocumentos privados emitidos en el extranjero a alguna forma de\r\nlegalización, como condición indispensable para que estos tengan efectos en el\r\npaís. Igualmente se puede afirmar esto, en relación con la Ley de Contratación\r\nAdministrativo y su reglamento, sin embargo, en el artículo 3 de esta Ley se\r\nestablece que: “…La actividad de contratación administrativa se somete a las\r\nnormas y los principios del ordenamiento jurídico administrativo…” y al\r\nrespecto, la Ley General de la Administración Pública en el artículo 294, sí\r\npreceptúa la legalización de los documentos que se presentan ante la\r\nAdministración pública, como condición para su eficacia. Dispone ese numeral: \"Artículo\r\n294 .- Todo documento presentado por los interesados se ajustará a lo\r\nsiguiente: a) Si estuviere expedido fuera de Costa Rica, deberá legalizarse;\r\ny b) Si estuviere redactado en idioma extranjero, deberá acompañarse su\r\ntraducción, la cual podrá ser hecha por la parte\". Esta redacción no deja\r\nduda al Tribunal de que el alcance normativo de esa disposición cobija\r\nindistintamente a los documentos públicos y privados (ver sentencia de esta\r\nSección –con distinta integración- número 12-2012 de las 09:00 horas del 27 de\r\nfebrero de 2012). Por esta razón le resulta plenamente aplicable a las cartas\r\nde referencia confeccionadas en Quito, Ecuador, el trámite de legalización, sea\r\néste de naturaleza consular o notarial, por tratarse –se insiste- de documentos\r\nprivados. Ahora bien, siendo que la Ley de Contratación Administrativa, dispone\r\nen su artículo 3 que “…El régimen de nulidades de la Ley General de la\r\nAdministración Pública aplicará a la contratación administrativa…” y en su\r\nartículo 32, que: “Será válido el contrato administrativo sustancialmente\r\nconforme al ordenamiento jurídico…”, lo cual es consistente a su vez con\r\nlos términos de los artículos 128 y 158.2 de la Ley General de la\r\nAdministración Pública, este Tribunal debe seguidamente determinar si el vicio\r\napuntado constituye o no una disconformidad sustancial o no del acto de\r\nadjudicación. Consideran así los suscritos que efectivamente a la luz de lo que\r\ndisponen los artículos 165 a\r\n167 LGAP, se trataría a lo sumo de la presencia\r\ndefectuosa de un elemento del acto, no su ausencia, por lo que estaría sujeto a\r\nsubsanación y convalidación, tal y como se prevé en los numerales 285 y 287 LGAP y 42.j LCA y 80 de su\r\nreglamento, mediante la presentación de una nueva carta que hubiera cumplido\r\ncon el trámite de legalización consular o notarial, al tratarse de una\r\nsituación que es en principio invariable, ya que se trataba de un hecho\r\nacontecido en el pasado, de modo que no se ve como esto podría haber ocasionado\r\nun trato desfavorable a los restantes oferentes. Sin embargo, siendo que esto\r\nno fue advertido por la Administración contratante, ni subsanado a instancia de\r\nparte por la empresa adjudicada –a diferencia de lo ocurrido con la nota de Sotemrisa-, los documentos en cuestión, a saber las cartas\r\nde referencia suscritas en Quito, República del Ecuador, por Silvia Neira\r\nBurneo en representación del Banco General Rumiñahui (f. 429 del expediente\r\nadministrativo) y por Juan Carlos Beltrán en representación del Banco Pichincha\r\n(f. 425 del expediente administrativo), carecen entonces de eficacia jurídica\r\npara la Administración Pública, incluyendo en esta noción al Banco Crédito\r\nAgrícola de Cartago a tenor del artículo 1 de la Ley de Contratación\r\nAdministrativa y 1 de la Ley General de la Administración Pública. Si en\r\nconsecuencia, a estas cartas no se les podía otorgar efectos jurídicos, la\r\nAdministración no debió tomarlas en cuenta a efectos de la valoración de la\r\noferta de Métodos Avanzados en cuanto al punto N° 101\r\ndel Cartel.- \n\r\n\r\n\nXV. \r\nCONTINUACIÓN.-\r\nSin embargo y pese a todo lo anterior, concluye este Tribunal que en el caso\r\nconcreto este vicio no es susceptible de configurar una disconformidad\r\nsustancial del acto de adjudicación, ya que en todo caso el motivo del acto se\r\nmantiene invariable, pues como se verá seguidamente, la sociedad adjudicada\r\ncontinúa ostentando el puntaje suficiente para considerarse como la opción más\r\nidónea para contratar. Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Más S.A. conserva todavía\r\ncomo acreditada la carta de referencia emitida por el Banco de Costa Rica, ya\r\nque ésta no ha sido cuestionada por la aquí actora. De este modo, conforme se\r\nobserva en el punto n° 101 del Cartel, antes transcrito, mediante dicha referencia observa el Tribunal\r\nque es posible mantener el puntaje del segundo componente de este rubro (20\r\npuntos), según el hecho probado número 36 y los folios 994 a 1004, 1012 a 1016, 1022 y 1023 del\r\nexpediente administrativo, ya que allí se constató de parte de la\r\nAdministración contratante que el producto ofertado correspondía a un sistema\r\npara la valoración de riesgo operativo en una entidad financiera. Igualmente,\r\nsiendo que en total se presentaron tres cartas de referencia, de las cuales\r\n-como se ha resuelto aquí- dos de ellas no podían ser tomadas en cuenta, esto\r\npermite aseverar en cuanto al primer componente de 10 puntos, la oferente Métodos\r\nAvanzados sí cumplía con una tercera parte del porcentaje de evaluación, lo que\r\nequivaldría a 3,33 puntos. Consecuentemente, del total máximo posible de 30\r\npuntos para este rubro, la oferta de Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. le\r\ncorrespondería un total de 23,33 puntos, que sumados a los otros subtotales\r\nobtenidos, arrojaría una sumatoria de 89,33 puntos, puntaje que igualmente\r\nsuperaría los 70 puntos obtenidos por la aquí accionante,\r\ntras el recurso de revocatoria que en su momento interpuso contra el acto de\r\nadjudicación. Así las cosas, siendo que la declaración del error cometido por\r\nla Administración no se traduce en un cambio sustancial de la situación\r\njurídica de las partes, lo procedente es conservar los efectos del acto de\r\nadjudicación conforme el principio a favor acti\r\no de conservación de los actos administrativos (Art. 168 LGAP)\r\ny el de conservación de la oferta (Art. 4 LCA). En\r\notras palabras, dado que a nada llevaría acoger la nulidad pretendida por el\r\nactor según este vicio, toda vez que al resultar la misma insustancial para el\r\nresultado final del acto y resultando improcedente la nulidad por la nulidad\r\nmisma (principio procesal \"pas de nullite sans grief\" o no hay\r\nnulidad sin perjuicio), de conformidad con el artículo 223 de la Ley General\r\nde la Administración Pública, lo ajustado en Derecho es declarar improcedente\r\ntambién este alegato, como en efecto se ordena.- \n\r\n\r\n\nXVI. \r\nSOBRE\r\nLA POSIBLE FALSEDAD DE LA INFORMACIÓN CONTENIDA EN LAS CARTAS DE REFERENCIA Y\r\nEN LAS DECLARACIONES JURADAS.- A lo largo del proceso, inclusive en los\r\nalegatos de apertura como en las conclusiones, la representación de la parte\r\nactora ha insistido en una falsedad de las afirmaciones contenidas en las\r\ncartas de referencia y declaraciones juradas aportadas por la firma Métodos\r\nAvanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A.. Por ejemplo, en relación con las cartas\r\naportadas con la oferta, indicó “…lo cual resultó que era completamente\r\nfalso, pues las implementaciones en los citados bancos fueron llevados a cabo\r\npor empresas ecuatorianas, que nunca estuvieron acreditadas en el concurso de\r\nmarras, tal como lo denunció reiteradamente DEINSA\r\ndentro del proceso cuestionado a Bancredito, quien\r\nhizo caso omiso de tales denuncias, y corresponde del delito de falsedad\r\nideológica…” (f. 164 del expediente judicial). Cita como fundamento\r\njurídico de este alegato, el pronunciamiento de la Contraloría General de la\r\nRepública contenido en la resolución administrativa número R-DAGJ-39-2003 de las 12:00 horas del 29 de abril de 2003, en\r\nla cual ese órgano contralor determinó en vía administrativa la falsedad de la\r\ninformación contenida en la oferta, lo cual desvirtuó la legitimación de un\r\nrecurrente de un acto de adjudicación. Al respecto, valga decir en primer\r\nlugar, que el criterio jurídico externado en un acto administrativo de la\r\nContraloría General de la República no es vinculante para este Tribunal, el\r\ncual sólo está sometido a la Constitución y a la Ley, de conformidad con los\r\nartículos 49 y 154 constitucionales. Así las cosas, y por aplicación supletoria\r\nsegún los artículos 220 CPCA y 9 y 13 LGAP, es posible remitirnos a lo dispuesto en el artículo\r\n294 del Código Procesal Civil: “Artículo 294.- Falsedad de documento en sede\r\ncivil. La falsedad de un documento sólo podrá ser declarada por el juez civil,\r\nen los siguientes casos: 1) Cuando la pretensión penal se hubiere extinguido\r\npor prescripción. 2) Cuando hubieren muerto los autores o cómplices del delito.\r\n3) Cuando no aparezcan responsables de la falsedad. En estos casos, si el\r\ndocumento se hubiere presentado en la demanda o reconvención, la prueba de la\r\nfalsedad se ofrecerá en la contestación o en la réplica. En los demás casos, en\r\nel incidente de presentación. En uno y otro caso la falsedad se decidirá en la\r\nsentencia definitiva.” En otras palabras, sólo es posible para este\r\nTribunal declarar una falsedad de la información indicada por la sociedad accionante, en el caso de que alguna de las hipótesis\r\nfácticas allí establecidas se hubieran comprobado, lo cual no ha ocurrido. De\r\neste modo, entrar a conocer y resolver acerca de las posibles falsedades\r\nincurridas de parte de la sociedad Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., en\r\nlos términos expuestos por la representación legal de la actora, resulta\r\nimprocedente y por tanto también debe ser rechazada, como en efecto se ordena.-\n\r\n\r\n\nXVII. \r\nRESPECTO DE LA OFERTA DE DESARROLLOS INFORMÁTICOS DEINSA.- La representación de la parte actora en todo momento se centró\r\nen combatir el acto de adjudicación bajo el criterio de que no se debió elegir\r\nla oferta de Métodos Avanzados, sin embargo dejó de lado acreditar porqué\r\nmotivo su oferta era la idónea para la Administración, limitándose a decir que\r\nhabían cumplido con todos los requisitos. Al respecto, tal y como quedó\r\ndemostrado (ver hechos probados 1, 2, 8, 9 y 10), desde un inicio del proceso\r\nde contratación administrativa y particularmente, durante el período de\r\nrecepción de ofertas, el Banco demandado no sólo adoptó conscientemente una\r\nposición al respecto, sino que además informó adecuadamente a la empresa actora\r\nsobre esto, comunicándole que su alternativa informática no llenaba las\r\nexpectativas técnicas de la necesidad que se intentaban satisfacer con la\r\nlicitación. Para este Tribunal resultaron de especial relevancia, primero, que\r\na la hora de aprobar el Cartel por parte de la Comisión de Contrataciones, se\r\njustificó la compra de un producto “llave en mano” como resultado de la la valoración de “…la efectividad de las herramientas\r\nexistentes en el mercado, realizando algunas visitas a empresas que ya tienen\r\nimplementado la herramienta, concluyendo que estas cumplen las necesidades y\r\nexpectativas del Banco….” Esas herramientas se restringían a dos\r\nopciones, ambas indicadas en la decisión inicial y que correspondían a los\r\nproductos informáticos: “SoftExpert Excellence Suite” y “OpRisk”,\r\nésta última, la alternativa que finalmente fue adquirida por la Administración\r\ncontratante, la cual al día de hoy, fue recibida e implementada a satisfacción\r\n(hecho probado n° 33). Segundo, que ante la nota del\r\n12 de setiembre de 2011, suscrita por el señor Dennis Alvarado Bonilla en condición de Presidente de\r\nDesarrollos Informáticos Deinsa S.A., donde cuestionó\r\nel procedimiento en atención a que el Banco contaba con su sistema informático\r\n“Delphos” desde el año 2005, el Banco contestó en\r\noficio PROV-796/2011 de fecha 16 de setiembre del 2011, que habían corroborado la existencia en\r\nel mercado de otras opciones que satisfacen las necesidades de la Institución y\r\nque una vez revisada la información disponible de los productos ofrecidas por\r\nesa empresa “…llama la atención que no se logró evidenciar la existencia\r\nde una herramienta específica para la valoración del riesgo operativo tal y\r\ncomo se consigna en el requerimiento presentado por esta área técnica….” Razón\r\npor la cual se le informó que si bien no existían impedimentos o limitaciones\r\npara su participación en el concurso, procederían a “…valorar la oferta en\r\nsimilares condiciones que los demás posibles participantes…”. En criterio\r\nde este Tribunal, aquí se le comunicó oportuna y adecuadamente del riesgo\r\nempresarial que asumía la firma Desarrollos Informáticos de continuar adelante\r\ncon el procedimiento, a sabiendas que su producto no cumplía las necesidades de\r\nla Administración contratante. Finalmente, en tercer lugar, según señaló la\r\ntestigo funcionario Grettel Granados Chavez (ver grabación de juicio oral y público desde las\r\n14:03:37 horas hasta las 14:06:21 horas), las referencias y el producto\r\nofertado por la empresa Desarrollos Informáticos Deinsa\r\nS.A. no cumplía con sus expectativas, primero, porque las referencias estaban\r\nligadas a instituciones no vinculadas al sector bancario, que no incluían\r\nvaloraciones de riesgo operativo y de tipo cuantitativo, y segundo, porque el\r\nsistema se centraba en el Sistema de Valoración de Riesgo Institucional, o Sevri, dispuesto por la Contraloría General de la República\r\no bien, a la normativa de riesgos por tecnología de la información de SUGEF, pero no al ámbito del riesgo operativo, que era\r\nhacia donde se deseaba evolucionar y en donde por su naturaleza cuantitativa,\r\nse presentaban importantes diferencias con lo que se quería. Manifestó la\r\ntestigo: “…nosotros necesitábamos un sistema que si bien es cierto no se\r\ndespegara de lo que la Contraloría nos pide, fuera un poco más allá y valorara\r\nla parte cuantitativa, que es lo que nos pide a nosotros la SUGEF,\r\nproyectándonos a la normativa que se veía que iba a salir en, próximamente y\r\nnosotros queríamos ir adquiriendo la experiencia previo a…” (grabación de\r\njuicio oral y público a partir de las 14:05:23 horas) Esto nuevamente es\r\nreiterado por la testigo, al explicar ante preguntas del Tribunal (ver hecho\r\nprobado número 37 y grabación del juicio oral y público de las 14:59:02 a las\r\n15:01:27 horas ), cómo las ofertas de Desarrollos Informáticos y de Métodos\r\nAvanzados, cumplían con lo establecido en el cartel de la licitación, pero\r\ndonde éste último aportaba experiencia y referencias de instituciones del\r\nsector bancario, que era lo que principalmente les interesaba que fuera\r\nacreditado, por tratarse la Administración contratante de una entidad\r\nbancaria.-\n\r\n\r\n\nXVIII. \r\nEN SÍNTESIS SOBRE LA IMPUGNACIÓN DEL ACTO DE ADJUDICACIÓN.- Encuentra este Tribunal que ninguno de\r\nlos alegatos esgrimidos para combatir el acto de adjudicación, son suficientes\r\ny adecuados para sustentar la disconformidad sustancial del acto con el\r\nordenamiento jurídico, a lo cual se debe sumar, que tampoco logró acreditar la accionante que su oferta resultar ser la idónea para\r\nsatisfacer la necesidad de la Administración contratante mediante la\r\nadquisición del objeto contractual. Así las cosas, lo que procede es desestimar\r\nla impugnación pretendida con las consecuencias que seguidamente se verán en\r\ncuanto al resto de la demanda incoada […].”",
  "body_en_text": "**A. REGARDING THE STATUS OF MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A. AS AN INDIVIDUAL BIDDER.-**\n\n**V. QUESTIONS REGARDING THE RELATIONSHIP OF MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A. WITH OTHER NON-BIDDING COMPANIES.-** For this Chamber, this allegation is difficult to pinpoint, as the manner used by the plaintiff's representation is very vague. As indicated in the lawsuit filing of September 11, 2013 (f. 162 of the judicial file), the plaintiff company argues that the company Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. did not submit a joint bid with any other company or that it formed any consortium for this purpose. It alleges that \"...it is a completely different company, with different corporate names, with different domiciles, from the Ecuadorian companies Metodos Avanzados Industriales and Sistemas Cognos CIA. LTDA., which is the only one known as Grupo Mas, as stated in the official documentation of the Internal Revenue Service of Ecuador, established in 1995 and also different from the company Soluciones Tecnológicas para Riesgos S.A. Sotemrisa.\" Finally, it concludes by indicating on this point that the bid does not include \"...formation of a consortium with the aforementioned Ecuadorian companies, which are the ones that have carried out the implementations of the OpRisk software outside of Costa Rica...\" In this regard, for this Tribunal, firstly, from the administrative file of the tender, it has been made clear that the bid was formally presented as an individual bid. Likewise, the existence of an economic group called \"Grupo Mas\" has not been proven, nor any relationship of Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. with foreign companies, much less that supposed foreign companies had offered or assumed any contractual commitment with any of the defendant parties. In this way, as observed on folio 444 of the administrative file, the bid was signed by \"...Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas S.A. hereinafter referred to as Grupo Mas, with legal identification number 3-101-264524, acting through its General Attorney-in-Fact, Ing. Giovanni Mazzari...\" Thus, this Tribunal infers, from these elements, that the sole responsible party before the contracting Administration would be said company and that only upon it could the effects of the contractual relationship be generated. Article 61 of the Regulation to the Administrative Procurement Law tells us about the bid: \"The bid is the manifestation of the participant's will, directed to the Administration, in order to enter into a contract with it, in accordance with the cartel stipulations.\" And according to the second paragraph of Article 66 of that regulatory body: \"The mere submission of the bid shall be understood as an unequivocal manifestation of the bidder's will to contract with full submission to the cartel conditions, legal and regulatory provisions in force. The submission shall operate by full right and shall imply the incorporation within the content of the contractual relationship of the constitutional norms, the Administrative Procurement Law, this Regulation, the Institutional Regulation, and the cartel.\" That is to say, the will to contract can only be attributed to the company Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A.. Now, despite the difficulty in understanding the scope of the defect in question, this Chamber can infer that it consists of the admission and valuation of contractual offerings to legal entities that are not participating as bidders, and that said evaluation be assigned to a particular bidder, to the detriment of free competition and equal treatment, or, that there could be contractual commitments assumed by third parties not part of the contract, such that the Administration could be harmed by not having a counterparty to demand responsibility from. However, for this Tribunal, as is deduced from the bid (proven fact number 11), from the correction presented (see proven fact number 17), and even from the second note signed by Sotemrisa (see proven fact number 26), at all times the sole responsible entity before the contracting Administration has been Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Más S.A., there is no participation of a third party in the formation of the contract, nor are there contractual commitments that have been assumed by third parties, nor is it deduced that any score was added to the Awardee as a result of the experience or reference of another person other than itself, and regarding the product offered, the Awardee had sufficient standing and right to offer and agree to the sale, installation, and implementation of the computer product \"GRS OpRisk\". Consequently, it is not observed how, within the framework of administrative procurement, any legal situation could have been established that would harm the other bidders or Banco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago. The position assumed by the plaintiff would imply that only the manufacturer of a product can carry out its commercialization, when in economic and legal reality this is not the case. What the contracting Administration had to ensure was the existence of the right of disposal over the product by the bidder, which was duly corroborated. We will return to this point further on.-\n\n**B.- REGARDING THE ALLEGED INCOMPLETENESS OF THE BID OF MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A.-**\n\n**VI. REGARDING THE \"SHAREPOINT\" LICENSE.-** The plaintiff company cites as part of its arguments, both in administrative and jurisdictional proceedings, the administrative ruling of the General Comptroller's Office of the Republic, number R-DCA-059-2011 from 10:00 on February 2, 2011 (f. 1053 to 1063 of the administrative file and 32 to 42 of the judicial file), from which the following can be extracted: \"...it is contrary to the principle of efficiency and the principle of equality of bids for the Administration to have to proceed to interpret or finish shaping the bid with elements, components, or data absent from the content of the bid, which would injure the principle of equality, vis-à-vis bidders who included in their sealed bids all the necessary elements [...] Faced with the solution of the case under analysis, it is held that the Administration did not have knowledge of the need to have the Mono Project component, until the manifestation made by the appealing company and the subsequent response from the awardee company, since by not having included it, quoted it, nor even mentioned it in its bid, there was no obligation on the part of the awardee company to comply with its delivery, and on the contrary, it leaves the Administration in a disadvantageous position by not having clearly stated before the opening of the bids the manner in which it intended to fulfill the object required by the Administration...\" (Highlighting is not from the original). Here, precisely, one of the main argumentative lines that the plaintiff maintained during the process is synthesized, particularly during the oral and public hearing: It seeks nullity of the award act for violation of the principles of free competition, equality, effectiveness, and efficiency, based on the fact that, despite the Awardee being obligated to provide all necessary licenses for the full functioning of its computer tool, such as the Sharepoint license, the defendant Bank, in an attitude of favoritism towards that company –as the plaintiff explicitly alleges–, proceeded to complete the bid of Métodos Avanzados with the acquisition of said license, which it also qualified as an illegal copy, as it argues that the version used by the defendants was not available on the market, thus it claims it was a \"pirate\" or illegal version of said computer program. Now, having considered the arguments and evidence provided, this Chamber has demonstrated in proven facts number 1, 2, 9, 24, 34, and 35, that the defendant Bank had considered since the prior hearings related to the market study, and which was recorded in the initial decision, that among the computer alternatives taken into account was the OpRisk computer tool, with the \"Sharepoint Point Server 2007\" feature, which it considered: \"...The applications are developed under cutting-edge programming languages. Therefore, there would be no inconvenience for its implementation...\" That is to say, regardless of any other argument, the Bank had already established that this system could be implemented without any problem, and it was even aware of the requirement that this computer option had the licensing of the \"Sharepoint\" application, from the very beginning of the procurement. For this reason, the administrative precedent of the General Comptroller's Office of the Republic, upon which the plaintiff evidently bases its case, is not applicable, since in this case the defendant Administration, unlike what occurred there, did have knowledge of that situation; consequently, it was not a novel element or the concealment of information that could leave Banco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago in a \"disadvantageous position\". Similarly for the bidders, who could consult this public information, available in the administrative file of the procurement, in accordance with Articles 8 and 11 of the Regulation to the Administrative Procurement Law, which is why discriminatory treatment against them, or from the plaintiff's perspective, favoritism towards the Awardee, did not materialize. This was amply reinforced -in this Tribunal's view-, with the consistent and conclusive testimony given by the official witness Marco Cordero Valverde during the oral and public hearing (see proven facts number 34 and 35), to the effect that the acquisition of the \"Sharepoint\" license was due to institutional needs and not for the purpose of the administrative procurement object of this process.-\n\n**VII. THE AVAILABILITY THAT SAID COMPANY HAD REGARDING THE LICENSE OF THE \"GRS OPRISK\" PRODUCT.-** In the plaintiff's view, the bid was also incomplete because Soluciones Tecnológicas para Riesgos S.A. Sotemrisa being the owner of the copyright of the \"GRS OpRisk\" product, and without there being any assignment of those rights in the administrative file, the awarded company Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. could not legally deliver the source codes of that system. The defendant Bank, for its part, pointed out that on several occasions, the awardee accredited that it did have the right to deliver the source code of the \"GRS OpRisk\" application. In this Tribunal's view, the representation of the defendant Bank is correct, since on this point, clause 83 of the Cartel, called \"Indispensable Condition\", established that: \"The bidder must be an authorized factory distributor of the offered product; for such purpose, an original certification from the manufacturer or a notarized photocopy demonstrating said condition must be provided. The bidder must present proof by means of a notarized sworn declaration that it is the owner, or is duly authorized to use and market the software licenses that it will use to provide services to the Bank.\" (Highlighting is not from the original). The wording of this article of the Cartel is not the most adequate, as it lacks precision when establishing how the distributor condition is accredited. For the undersigned, what this clause enunciates are two different ways of proving said condition: By certification issued by the manufacturer or, by means of a sworn declaration. Note also that there is confusion regarding the distributor condition; however, what matters is accrediting the possibility of selling the computer program in question to others, regardless of the manufacturer condition, and this was demonstrated by the co-defendant Métodos Avanzados S.A., since compliance with this cartel condition can be observed, first in the bid, specifically, with the documents found on folios 432 (sworn declaration) and 431 of the administrative file; second, in the correction requested by the Bank, by means of the sworn declaration on folio 822 of the administrative file; and finally, by means of the note provided by Métodos Avanzados on December 12, 2011, from folios 1129 to 1131 of the administrative file (see proven fact number 26). Furthermore, emphasis is placed on what was already stated earlier, regarding the fact that the plaintiff's position is based on the idea that only the manufacturer of a good can transfer the right to its use, when -as in this case- it is possible to resort to the figure of the distributor, who, without being a producer, \"...takes charge of the risks of negotiating with those, the consumers (third parties), on his own account and in his own name...\" the goods produced or manufactured by the former (Judgment of the First Chamber number 606-F-S1-2013 at 08:50 on May 16, 2013). This being so, the plaintiff company is not correct, since the awarded company was able to corroborate during the administrative procurement procedure that it held the right and standing to dispose of the \"GRS OpRisk\" software, so much so that finally Métodos Avanzados made material delivery of the source codes, the functionality manuals, and the technical manuals, the former remaining in one of the Bank's safety deposit boxes, all of which was duly reviewed by the officials of the Technical Area of that Institution, in order to verify that it corresponded with the installed system (see proven fact no. 33). This being the case, it is appropriate to reject the defect thus argued as unfounded.-\n\n**VIII. THE ACCREDITATION OF THE PERSONNEL IN CHARGE OF SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION.-** The representation of the plaintiff company alleges that the specialist designated in the bid of Métodos Avanzados for the implementation of the \"GRS OpRisk\" system, Mr. Vladimir Guzman Mendoza, was not the person who actually carried out the implementation of the offered system, but a lady named Katia Ruales, who was not indicated in the bid and is not an employee of the co-defendant and, on the contrary, is an official of the company Sotemrisa, a company domiciled in Ecuador, a company that did not participate in the bid. For this Tribunal, this line of argumentation also does not prove the substantial non-conformity with the legal system of the award act, since as has been demonstrated in proven facts no. 15 and 17, it was during the correction and clarification stage of the bid of Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., where it was recorded that Ms. Katia Ruales Maldonado would be part of the team in charge of the system implementation. In this sense, this Tribunal wishes to make it clear to the parties that, having examined the interrogation to which the witness Grettel Granados Chavez was subjected regarding this point (see recording of oral and public hearing starting at 14:36:47), specifically, regarding the intervention that Ms. Katia Ruales had in the implementation of the \"GRS OpRisk\" system, it loses value because it is based on a recognition of documents focused only on one part of the bid of Métodos Avanzados, when as has already been stated, this information appears precisely in the clarification document, just as the witness pointed out to the lawyer of the plaintiff company, but without being able to specify the document in the administrative file. Likewise, the observation is made that on folio 431 of the administrative file, in the first note from the company Soluciones Tecnológicas para Riesgos S.A. or Sotemrisa, Mr. Xavier Merino, president of that company, indicated that Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. had certified personnel to implement the product, among whom was Ms. Katia Ruales. This being so, given that in its moment and transparently, it was accredited in the procurement file that Ms. Katia Ruales Maldonado would participate in the technical team for the implementation of the \"GRS OpRisk\" system, and therefore, it would not be information that was deliberately and surprisingly hidden, thereby generating unequal treatment with other bidders or bad faith behavior on the part of the awarded company towards the contracting Administration, it is appropriate to also dismiss this allegation and continue with the consideration of the remaining points of this lawsuit.-\n\n**C.- REGARDING THE ACCREDITATION AND QUALIFICATION OF THE EXPERIENCE ITEM .-**\n\n**IX. REGARDING THE CONTRACTING COMPANY HAVING TO HOLD THE STATUS OF SOFTWARE \"DEVELOPER\".-** The plaintiff company maintained that this administrative procurement sought a firm that had a software \"developer\" status, and this circumstance, in its opinion, applied for several purposes. The main purpose was to accredit the experience of the bidding firm; however, it also applied to other issues, for example, the capacity to dispose of the \"GRS OpRisk\" software; nevertheless, as these other issues have already been resolved or will be the subject of a specific ruling, they will not be taken into account when resolving this argumentative line, which will focus on the experience item. In other words, that software \"developer\" firm status will be examined solely regarding the allegation that, at the bid evaluation stage, what had to be taken into account was only experience in the development of computer products. In this regard, the plaintiff's thesis is distorted by the same reason based on which the contracting Administration partially upheld the appeal for revocation filed by Desarrollos Informáticos Deinsa S.A.: The awarded company presented the sworn declaration that was the requirement established in the cartel to accredit this item. In the administrative ruling of the General Deputy Management of Banco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago, at 15:00 on December 14, 2011 (see proven fact no. 27), it was established, in relevant part: \"...Now, in relation to the experience requested in point 100, in accordance with the review of the procurement file, the appellant was only assigned 5 points; however, taking into consideration that the experience indicated in point 100 was to be corroborated by means of a sworn declaration, it is clear that there was an error in the assignment of points, since the appellant on folios 781 to 782 proceeds to provide the sworn declaration requested by the cartel, which is why it was also entitled to the other 15 points established by the factor...\" (f. 1135 of the administrative file. Highlighting is not from the original). In this sense, it is possible to see in the administrative procurement file the sworn declaration of the representative of the company Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., which is on folio 432 and indicates what was requested in point 100 of the Cartel: an experience of 4 years in the development of operational risk assessment applications at the Banks of Costa Rica, General Rumiñahui, and Pichincha. Likewise, the contacts are attached, which were corroborated by the contracting Administration. In this regard, the witness Grettel Granados Chavez, an official of the Operational Risk Area of the Risk Directorate of the defendant Bank and in charge of the administrative procurement process in question, declared during the oral and public hearing (see recording of oral and public hearing starting at 14:26:42), that the score was assigned to Métodos Avanzados corresponding to the experience and reference items because it was considered that it complied with what was required in the cartel, regarding three years of experience in the development of operational risk assessment systems, which they verified \"...with the declaration that was requested and with the references mentioned...\" (recording of oral and public hearing from 14:26:59 to 14:27:08).\n\n**X. CONTINUATION.-** It draws the Tribunal's attention that the cartel did not specify the admissibility of the bid or that its evaluation percentage would be affected by whether or not it was a \"software developer\" company, in which case it would have been desirable to have external and objective parameters to define that concept, starting as a minimum with having defined that notion. However, that was not the case; number 72 of the Tender Cartel was very limitedly circumscribed to establishing the following rule: \"...The bidder must have a minimum of three years of experience in the development of applications in Operational Risk assessment systems, at both national and international levels. A sworn declaration must be provided stating the bidder's years of experience...\" In this way, all bidders -under equal conditions- thus met that admissibility requirement with the mere submission of the sworn declaration, which indeed occurred in the case of Métodos Avanzados, as explained in the preceding recital. Also, the Tribunal notes that, despite constituting the most important of its arguments and therefore its most relevant procedural burden, the plaintiff party, first, also did not demonstrate from a technical perspective what that notion consisted of and why what was done by the Administration is contrary to technical legality, by attributing that status to one who does not possess it; and second, perhaps most seriously of all, it focused its litigious effort on an aspect alien to the award act, since, on the contrary, it is a matter pertaining to the tender cartel, as it is there where the requirement was established. In that sense and mainly, based on the explanation given by the witness Grettel Granados Chaves (see proven facts numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 37), in her capacity as an official of the body whose need was being addressed and one of the persons in charge of the procurement, this Tribunal has sensed that the possible origin of the non-conformity pointed out here by the Plaintiff is centered on the mistaken treatment that the Bank gave in the cartel to this condition of being a \"software developer\" and the significance of this for the procurement, since, as the witness stated, the Bank's interest lay in accrediting the experience the bidder had \"...on the system (...) on the parameters required underneath the system...\", the doubt then arises: Was it truly a minimum, invariable, and fundamental condition to satisfy the Administration's need? Despite being a reasonable question, the undersigned consider that this is not part of the object of the present process, because the plaintiff party did NOT challenge the tender cartel at any time, nor has it derived any claim in this regard, leaving the conditions indicated in the cartel unaltered.-\n\n**XI. IN SYNTHESIS.-** In summary of this point, this Chamber wishes to clearly establish for the parties that the lack or not of the status of software \"developer\" on the part of Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. is not a defect that affects the award act, since, first, said company complied with what was required in this regard in the cartel, which was also corroborated by the Administration, and second, going beyond this implies in reality –despite all the litigious work carried out throughout the process– an unnecessary and useless effort, because the plaintiff party itself filed its lawsuit on the award, NOT on the tender cartel, which is where the requirement and the manner of fulfilling it were determined, and where the term software \"development\" was erroneously used due to a lack of definition of the same and objective parameters for its verification. Consequently, as the argued defect is unfounded, this Chamber will continue with the analysis of the remaining points.-\n\n**XII. REGARDING THE ALLEGED ACCREDITATION OF THIRD-PARTY EXPERIENCE TO THE BID OF MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A..-** The representation of the plaintiff company alleged in the conclusions of the oral and public hearing that the awarded firm, Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. \"...did not present any consortium at the time, uh, of submitting the tender, nor of participating with the co-defendant company here. Those two companies do not share representatives, do not share names, do not share corporate names. It is a company created only in the year 2010, when an experience of three years was requested, which it did not meet, since there are not three years of experience from 2010 to 2011...\" (recording of the oral and public hearing starting at 15:58:48). Now, on this point, we already partially referred to it when the first of the nullity allegations was resolved; nevertheless, it is worth stating that having analyzed the bid, as well as the award act and the administrative contract finally signed, it is not observed, nor has it been proven, that third parties, natural or legal persons, national or foreign, had assumed contractual commitments or made offerings within the bid submitted by Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A.. Nor is it inferred, nor has it been proven, that in the sworn declaration on folio 432 of the administrative file, presented with the bid, said company requested or declared the experience of third parties as part of its business experience. Finally, and more importantly, for this Chamber, it was not demonstrated in the process that either the sworn declarations or the reference letters were false, which is why it is not legally possible to distort the experience that the awarded company managed to prove by that means. Thus, it seems strange to this Tribunal that the plaintiff Company claims this as a defect in the award act, when clearly this has not happened, or at least –it is reiterated– no evidence has been provided to that effect. For this reason, the pronouncement of the General Comptroller's Office of the Republic number R-DCA-522-2008 at 08:00 on October 3, 2008, does not apply to the specific case either, in the manner in which it has been argued by the plaintiff company. Therefore, as this allegation is openly unfounded, it is rejected.-\n\n**D.- REGARDING THE ACCREDITATION AND QUALIFICATION OF THE REFERENCES ITEM :**\n\n**XIII. ABOUT THE FORMALITIES OF THE PRIVATE DOCUMENTS PROVIDED WITH THE BID OF MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A.-** The representation of the plaintiff party questioned that the documentation provided with the bid, specifically, the reference letters and the note from Sotemrisa, as well as the second note from the latter, documents that are visible on folios 421 to 431 and 1130 of the administrative file, did not comply with the respective legalization requirements, as they are documents originating from abroad. It alleged in the conclusions: \"...we have that without complying with the requirements that the law establishes, the Code, specifically, the Civil Procedure Code, the Notarial Code in its Article 14, and the Commerce Code, letters and documents are accepted that do not come fully legalized, that do not come complying with the chain of legality established by our...our legislation.\n\nThis is also confirmed by the testimony of the witness, of Bancrédito, where she states that effectively, well, she never saw those authentications, that they were carried out by a Costa Rican public notary and if the documents came from abroad, well they should have been, come apostilled or consularized in order for them to have, um, legality here in Costa Rica…” (recording of the oral and public trial from 15:53:32 to 15:54:22) The representation of the defendant Bank limited itself to indicating on this point, that this documentation came certified by a public notary, notwithstanding which, they proceeded to verify the veracity of the information contained in the data directly with the foreign Banks. This being the case and having analyzed the existing arguments and evidence, this Court considers that the plaintiff is partially correct regarding this point, however, as will be seen, this does not lead to a substantial change in the challenged conduct and is therefore, inconsequential for what was sought by the plaintiff company. Let us see, in the definitive version of the bidding terms, the following was established in this regard: “101. References of the offeror in the implementation of Operational Risk Assessment Systems. (Value 30 points) 10 points will be assigned to the offeror that presents 3 reference letters demonstrating experience in the development and support of Operational Risk Assessment systems. 20 points will be assigned to the offeror that presents 1 reference letter demonstrating experience in the development and support of an Operational Risk Assessment system in public or private banking institutions (nationally or internationally). The maximum score (30 points) will be assigned to the offeror that complies with the two previous points, that is, that presents 3 reference letters, where one or more references correspond to public or private banking institutions (nationally or internationally) in the development and support of an Operational Risk Assessment system. Each reference letter must be an original or a copy certified by a notary that it is a faithful copy of the original that was viewed, with an issuance date no more than 6 months prior to the bid opening date. Additionally, it must indicate the company name, telephone number, name and signature of the contact, the position held, and express reference must be made to the quality (low, medium, high) of the service provided. The Bank reserves the right to validate these reference letters. If the information provided does not coincide with the consultation made, this reference will be discarded and will not be taken into account for the bid evaluation.” (Highlighting is not from the original). This clause is related to Article 73, which establishes as an admissibility requirement: “…having implemented the offered system in at least one public entity of the National Financial System…” for which “…the reference letters from the institutions must be provided…”. It is thus observed, that the Bank, despite establishing that reference letters from abroad could be presented, omitted to indicate in the Bidding Terms the manner in which they should be presented, such that it is necessary to resort to the legal system in order to determine the rules applicable to the formalities that from the beginning, said letters should have satisfied, so that they could have legal effects in Costa Rica. In the first place, it is worth specifying that the plaintiff has directed this defect exclusively at the documents executed abroad, with which we can leave out the reference letter signed by Alejandro Sebiani on behalf of the Banco de Costa Rica (f. 427 of the administrative file) and the second note from Sotemrisa (f. 1130 of the administrative file), the latter since it has not been proven that it was executed outside the country. It is noted that in the opinion of this Court, this circumstance in turn, allows rectifying what happened with the first note from Sotemrisa dated August 30, 2011, for the reasons that will be stated a little later.-\n\nXIV.\nCONTINUATION.- In the second place, it is noted that the plaintiff also errs in claiming that these documents prepared abroad should be \"apostilled\", this because the documents in question are not of a public nature, since they were not issued by a foreign public authority or by persons holding public power for this purpose. In this regard, Article 1 of the Convention for the elimination of the requirement of legalization for foreign public documents or Apostille Convention, ratified by our country by Law No. 8923 of February 22, 2011, establishes: \"The present Convention shall apply to public documents which have been executed in the territory of one Contracting State and which must be produced in the territory of another Contracting State. For the purposes of the present Convention, the following are deemed to be public documents: a) documents emanating from an authority or an official connected with the courts or tribunals of the State, including those emanating from a public prosecutor, a court clerk or a process server (\"huissier de justice\"); b) administrative documents; c) notarial acts; d) official certificates which are placed on documents signed by persons in their private capacity, such as official certificates recording the registration of a document or the fact that it was in existence on a certain date and official and notarial authentications of signatures. However, the present Convention shall not apply: a) to documents executed by diplomatic or consular agents; b) to administrative documents dealing directly with commercial or customs operations.\" (Highlighting is not from the original) In this manner, since it has not been proven that the documents in question constitute public documents, in particular, under the terms of the cited clause, it is possible to assert that effectively they did not have to be subjected to \"apostilling\", that is, to the procedure provided for in that international legal instrument. Finally, it remains to be reviewed whether, constituting then private documents that contain at most a legal act, insofar as by the declaration contained therein it is expected that they have a legal effect in Costa Rica, consisting of accrediting a requirement of an administrative contracting, said documents should be subjected or not to a legalization procedure, be it by the diplomatic-consular route or, of a notarial nature. This is, precisely, the thesis of the plaintiff, which however does not establish a solid legal foundation, at most it invokes clause 14 of the Notarial Code, referring to the notarial function of consular personnel of the Republic's foreign service, however, in none of these normative bodies, nor even in Law No. 46-A of July 07, 1925, Organic Law of the Consular Service, following the line set by the plaintiff's representation, is the duty established to subject private documents issued abroad to some form of legalization, as an indispensable condition for them to have effects in the country. This can likewise be affirmed, in relation to the Administrative Contracting Law and its regulations, however, Article 3 of this Law establishes that: “…The administrative contracting activity is subject to the rules and principles of the administrative legal system…” and in this regard, the General Law of Public Administration in Article 294, does indeed prescribe the legalization of documents presented before the Public Administration, as a condition for their effectiveness. This clause provides: \"Article 294.- Every document presented by interested parties shall conform to the following: a) If it was issued outside of Costa Rica, it must be legalized; and b) If it was drafted in a foreign language, its translation must be attached, which may be done by the party\". This wording leaves no doubt to the Court that the normative scope of that provision covers indistinctly public and private documents (see judgment of this Section –with a different composition- number 12-2012 of 09:00 hours of February 27, 2012). For this reason, the legalization procedure, be it of a consular or notarial nature, is fully applicable to the reference letters prepared in Quito, Ecuador, as they are –it is insisted- private documents. Now, given that the Administrative Contracting Law provides in its Article 3 that “…The regime of nullities of the General Law of Public Administration shall apply to administrative contracting…” and in its Article 32, that: “The administrative contract shall be valid if it is substantially in conformity with the legal system…”, which is consistent in turn with the terms of Articles 128 and 158.2 of the General Law of Public Administration, this Court must subsequently determine if the defect pointed out constitutes or not a substantial non-conformity of the award act. The undersigned consider thus that effectively in light of the provisions of Articles 165 to 167 LGAP, it would be at most the defective presence of an element of the act, not its absence, so it would be subject to rectification and validation, as provided for in clauses 285 and 287 LGAP and 42.j LCA and 80 of its regulations, through the presentation of a new letter that had complied with the consular or notarial legalization procedure, as it is a situation that is in principle invariable, since it dealt with a fact that occurred in the past, so it is not seen how this could have caused unfavorable treatment to the remaining offerors. However, given that this was not noticed by the contracting Administration, nor rectified at the instance of the party by the awarded company –unlike what happened with the note from Sotemrisa-, the documents in question, namely the reference letters signed in Quito, Republic of Ecuador, by Silvia Neira Burneo on behalf of Banco General Rumiñahui (f. 429 of the administrative file) and by Juan Carlos Beltrán on behalf of Banco Pichincha (f. 425 of the administrative file), lack legal effectiveness for the Public Administration, including in this notion the Banco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago pursuant to Article 1 of the Administrative Contracting Law and 1 of the General Law of Public Administration. If consequently, these letters could not be granted legal effects, the Administration should not have taken them into account for the purposes of evaluating the bid of Métodos Avanzados regarding point No. 101 of the Bidding Terms.-\n\nXV.\nCONTINUATION.-\nHowever and despite all the foregoing, this Court concludes that in the specific case this defect is not capable of configuring a substantial non-conformity of the award act, since in any case the grounds for the act remains unchanged, as will be seen below, the awarded company continues to hold a sufficient score to be considered the most suitable option to contract. Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. still retains as accredited the reference letter issued by the Banco de Costa Rica, since this has not been questioned by the plaintiff here. In this way, as observed in point No. 101 of the Bidding Terms, transcribed above, through said reference the Court observes that it is possible to maintain the score of the second component of this item (20 points), according to proven fact number 36 and folios 994 to 1004, 1012 to 1016, 1022 and 1023 of the administrative file, since it was verified there by the contracting Administration that the product offered corresponded to a system for the assessment of operational risk in a financial entity. Likewise, given that a total of three reference letters were presented, of which -as has been resolved here- two of them could not be taken into account, this allows asserting as to the first component of 10 points, the offeror Métodos Avanzados did comply with a third part of the evaluation percentage, which would be equivalent to 3.33 points. Consequently, of the total possible maximum of 30 points for this item, the bid of Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. would be entitled to a total of 23.33 points, which added to the other subtotals obtained, would yield a total of 89.33 points, a score that would equally surpass the 70 points obtained by the plaintiff here, after the appeal for revocation that it filed at the time against the award act. This being the case, since the declaration of the error committed by the Administration does not translate into a substantial change in the legal situation of the parties, the appropriate course is to preserve the effects of the award act in accordance with the principle favor acti or preservation of administrative acts (Art. 168 LGAP) and the principle of preservation of the offer (Art. 4 LCA). In other words, given that accepting the nullity sought by the plaintiff according to this defect would lead to nothing, since it results insubstantial to the final result of the act and nullity for nullity's sake is improper (procedural principle \"pas de nullite sans grief\" or no nullity without prejudice), in accordance with Article 223 of the General Law of Public Administration, what is appropriate in Law is to declare this claim also inadmissible, as is indeed ordered.-\n\nXVI.\nON THE POSSIBLE FALSITY OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THE REFERENCE LETTERS AND SWORN STATEMENTS.- Throughout the process, including in the opening arguments as well as in the conclusions, the representation of the plaintiff has insisted on a falsity of the statements contained in the reference letters and sworn statements provided by the firm Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A.. For example, in relation to the letters provided with the offer, it indicated “…which turned out to be completely false, since the implementations in the cited banks were carried out by Ecuadorian companies, that were never accredited in the tender in question, as repeatedly denounced by DEINSA within the process challenged before Bancredito, who ignored such complaints, and corresponds to the crime of ideological falsity…” (f. 164 of the judicial file). It cites as a legal basis for this claim, the pronouncement of the Contraloría General de la República contained in administrative resolution number R-DAGJ-39-2003 of 12:00 hours on April 29, 2003, in which that oversight body determined administratively the falsity of the information contained in the offer, which undermined the standing of an appellant against an award act. In this regard, it is worth saying first, that the legal opinion expressed in an administrative act of the Contraloría General de la República is not binding on this Court, which is only subject to the Constitution and the Law, in accordance with Articles 49 and 154 of the Constitution. This being the case, and by supplementary application according to Articles 220 CPCA and 9 and 13 LGAP, it is possible to refer to the provisions of Article 294 of the Civil Procedure Code: “Article 294.- Falsity of document in civil proceedings. The falsity of a document can only be declared by the civil judge, in the following cases: 1) When the criminal charge has been extinguished by the statute of limitations. 2) When the perpetrators or accomplices of the crime have died. 3) When no persons responsible for the falsity appear. In these cases, if the document has been presented in the claim or counterclaim, evidence of the falsity will be offered in the response or in the reply. In other cases, in the presentation incident. In either case, the falsity will be decided in the final judgment.” In other words, it is only possible for this Court to declare a falsity of the information indicated by the plaintiff company, in the event that any of the factual hypotheses established there had been proven, which has not occurred. In this way, to hear and resolve about the possible falsities incurred by the company Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., in the terms set forth by the legal representation of the plaintiff, is inadmissible and therefore must also be rejected, as is indeed ordered.-\n\nXVII.\nREGARDING THE OFFER OF DESARROLLOS INFORMÁTICOS DEINSA.- The representation of the plaintiff at all times focused on contesting the award act under the criterion that the offer of Métodos Avanzados should not have been chosen, however it neglected to prove why its offer was the suitable one for the Administration, limiting itself to saying that it had met all the requirements. In this regard, as was demonstrated (see proven facts 1, 2, 8, 9 and 10), from the beginning of the administrative contracting process and particularly, during the bid reception period, the defendant Bank not only consciously adopted a position in this regard, but also adequately informed the plaintiff company about this, communicating that its technological alternative did not meet the technical expectations of the need that was being attempted to satisfy with the tender. For this Court, it was of special relevance, first, that at the time of approving the Bidding Terms by the Contracting Commission, the purchase of a \"turnkey\" product was justified as a result of the assessment of “…the effectiveness of the tools existing in the market, carrying out some visits to companies that already have the tool implemented, concluding that these meet the needs and expectations of the Bank….” Those tools were restricted to two options, both indicated in the initial decision and which corresponded to the software products: “SoftExpert Excellence Suite” and “OpRisk”, the latter being the alternative that was finally acquired by the contracting Administration, which as of today, has been received and implemented satisfactorily (proven fact No. 33). Second, that faced with the note of September 12, 2011, signed by Mr. Dennis Alvarado Bonilla as President of Desarrollos Informáticos Deinsa S.A., where he questioned the procedure on the grounds that the Bank had had its computer system “Delphos” since 2005, the Bank replied in official letter PROV-796/2011 dated September 16, 2011, that they had corroborated the existence in the market of other options that satisfy the needs of the Institution and that once the available information on the products offered by that company was reviewed “…it is striking that the existence of a specific tool for operational risk assessment could not be evidenced as stated in the requirement presented by this technical area….” Reason for which it was informed that although no impediments or limitations existed for its participation in the tender, they would proceed to “…evaluate the offer under similar conditions as the other possible participants…”. In the opinion of this Court, here the business risk assumed by the firm Desarrollos Informáticos by continuing forward with the procedure was communicated in a timely and adequate manner, knowing that its product did not meet the needs of the contracting Administration. Finally, in third place, as noted by the witness official Grettel Granados Chavez (see recording of oral and public trial from 14:03:37 hours to 14:06:21 hours), the references and the product offered by the company Desarrollos Informáticos Deinsa S.A. did not meet its expectations, first, because the references were linked to institutions not related to the banking sector, which did not include operational risk assessments and of a quantitative nature, and second, because the system focused on the Institutional Risk Assessment System, or Sevri, established by the Contraloría General de la República or else, on the IT risk regulations of SUGEF, but not on the scope of operational risk, which is where they wished to evolve and where due to its quantitative nature, there were important differences from what was wanted. The witness stated: “…we needed a system that although it is true did not depart from what the Contraloría asks of us, went a little further and assessed the quantitative part, which is what SUGEF asks of us, projecting towards the regulations that were seen to be coming out, soon and we wanted to acquire the experience prior to…” (recording of oral and public trial starting at 14:05:23 hours) This is again reiterated by the witness, when explaining before questions from the Court (see proven fact number 37 and recording of the oral and public trial from 14:59:02 to 15:01:27 hours), how the offers of Desarrollos Informáticos and Métodos Avanzados, complied with what was established in the bidding terms, but where the latter contributed experience and references from banking sector institutions, which was what they were mainly interested in being accredited, as the contracting Administration is a banking entity.-\n\nXVIII.\nIN SUMMARY ON THE CHALLENGE OF THE AWARD ACT.- This Court finds that none of the arguments put forth to contest the award act are sufficient and adequate to support the substantial non-conformity of the act with the legal system, to which it must be added, that the plaintiff also failed to prove that its offer turned out to be the suitable one to satisfy the need of the contracting Administration through the acquisition of the contractual object.\n\nThus, what is appropriate is to dismiss the challenge sought, with the consequences that will be seen below regarding the rest of the complaint filed […].”,\n\nA. ON THE STATUS OF MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A. AS AN INDIVIDUAL BIDDER.-\n\nV. QUESTIONS REGARDING THE RELATIONSHIP OF MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A. WITH OTHER NON-BIDDING COMPANIES.- For this Chamber, this allegation is difficult to pin down, as the manner used by the plaintiff's representation is very vague. As indicated in the complaint filed on September 11, 2013 (f. 162 of the judicial file), the plaintiff company argues that the company Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. did not submit a joint bid with any other company nor did it form any consortium for that purpose. It alleges that “…it is a completely different company, with different corporate names, with different domiciles, from the Ecuadorian companies Metodos Avanzados Industriales y Sistemas Cognos CIA. LTDA., which is the only one known as Grupo Mas, as stated in the official documentation of the Internal Revenue Service of Ecuador, established in 1995, and also different from the company Soluciones Tecnológicas para Riesgos S.A. Sotemrisa.” Finally, it ends up indicating on this point that the bid does not include “…the formation of a consortium with the aforementioned Ecuadorian companies, which are the ones that have carried out the implementations of the OpRisk software outside of Costa Rica…” In this regard, for this Court, first, from the administrative bidding file it has been made clear that the bid was formally submitted as an individual bid. Likewise, the existence of an economic group called “Grupo Mas” has not been proven, nor has any relationship between Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. and foreign companies, much less that supposed foreign companies had offered or assumed any contractual commitment with any of the defendant parties. Thus, as observed on folio 444 of the administrative file, the bid was signed by “…Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas S.A., hereinafter referred to as Grupo Mas, with legal identification number 3-101-264524, acting through its General Attorney-in-Fact, Eng. Giovanni Mazzari…”. Thus, this Court infers, from these elements, that the sole party responsible before the contracting Administration would be said company and that the effects typical of the contractual relationship could only be generated with respect to it. Article 61 of the Regulations to the Law on Administrative Procurement tells us regarding the bid: “The bid is the expression of will of the participant, directed to the Administration, for the purpose of entering into a contract with it, in accordance with the tender specifications (cartel) stipulations.” And according to the second paragraph of Article 66 of that regulatory body: “The mere submission of the bid shall be understood as an unequivocal expression of the bidder’s will to contract in full submission to the tender specifications (cartel) conditions, current legal and regulatory provisions. The submission shall operate by operation of law and shall imply the incorporation into the content of the contractual relationship of the constitutional norms, the Law on Administrative Procurement, these Regulations, the Institutional Regulations, and the tender specifications (cartel).” That is to say, the will to contract can only be attributed to the company Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. Now, despite it being difficult to understand the scope of the defect in question, this Chamber can infer that it consists of the admission and evaluation of contractual offerings by legal persons who are not participating as bidders and that said evaluation be assigned to a particular bidder, to the detriment of free competition and equal treatment, or, that there could be contractual commitments assumed by third parties who are not part of the contract, such that the Administration could be harmed by not having a counterparty from whom to demand responsibility. However, for this Court, as deduced from the bid (proven fact number 11), from the correction (subsanación) presented (see proven fact number 17), and even from the second note signed by Sotemrisa (see proven fact number 26), at all times the sole party responsible before the contracting Administration has been Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Más S.A., there is no participation of a third party in the formation of the contract, nor are there contractual commitments that have been assumed by third persons, nor can it be deduced that any score was added to the Awardee as a result of the experience or reference of any person other than itself, and with respect to the product offered, the Awardee had sufficient standing and right to offer and agree to the sale, installation, and implementation of the computer product “GRS OpRisk”. Consequently, it is not observed how, within the framework of administrative procurement, any legal situation could have been established that harmed the other bidders or Banco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago. The position assumed by the plaintiff would imply that only the manufacturer of a product can carry out its commercialization, when in economic and legal reality this is not the case. What the contracting Administration had to ensure was the existence of the right of disposal of the product by the bidder, which was duly corroborated. We will return to this point later.-\n\nB.- ON THE ALLEGED INCOMPLETENESS OF THE BID OF MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A.-\n\nVI. REGARDING THE “SHAREPOINT” LICENSE.- The plaintiff company cites as part of its grounds, both in the administrative and jurisdictional channels, the administrative resolution of the Contraloría General de la República, number R-DCA-059-2011 of 10:00 on February 2, 2011 (f. 1053 a 1063 of the administrative file and 32 a 42 of the judicial file), from which the following can be extracted: “…it is contrary to the principle of efficiency and the principle of equality of bids for the Administration to have to proceed to interpret or finish shaping the bid with elements, components, or data absent from the bid content, which would injure the principle of equality, in relation to bidders who included all the necessary elements in their sealed bids (plicas) […] In view of the solution of the case under analysis, it is noted that the Administration had no knowledge of the need for the Mono Project component until the statement made by the appealing company and the subsequent response from the awarded company, since by not having included it, quoted it, or even mentioned it in its bid, there was no obligation on the part of the awarded company to deliver it and, on the contrary, it leaves the Administration in a disadvantageous position by not having clearly stated before the opening of the bids the manner in which it intended to fulfill the object required by the Administration…” (Highlighting is not from the original) This synthesizes, precisely, one of the main lines of argument that the plaintiff maintained during the proceeding, particularly during the oral and public trial: It seeks the annulment of the award act for violation of the principles of free competition, equality, effectiveness, and efficiency due to the fact that, despite the Awardee being obligated to provide all the necessary licenses for the full operation of its computer tool, such as the Sharepoint license, the defendant Bank, in an attitude of favoritism toward that company – as the plaintiff explicitly alleges – proceeded to complete the bid of Métodos Avanzados with the acquisition of said license, which it also described as being an illegal copy, since it argues that the version used by the defendants was not available on the market, therefore asserting it was a “pirated” or illegal version of said computer program. Now, having considered the arguments and evidence provided, this Chamber has held as demonstrated in proven facts number 1, 2, 9, 24, 34, and 35, that the defendant Bank had considered, from the preliminary hearings relating to the market study and as recorded in the initial decision, that among the computer alternatives that had been taken into account was the OpRisk computer tool, with the characteristic “Sharepoint Point Server 2007”, which was considered: “...The applications are developed under cutting-edge programming languages. Therefore, there would be no inconvenience for its implementation…” That is to say, regardless of any other argument, the Bank had already established that this system could be implemented without any problem, and there was even knowledge of the requirement that this computer option have the licensing of the “Sharepoint” application, from the very beginning of the procurement. For this reason, the administrative precedent of the Contraloría General de la República, on which the plaintiff party evidently bases its case, is not applicable, since in this case the defendant Administration, unlike what occurred there, did have knowledge of that situation, and therefore it was not a novel element or the concealment of information that could leave Banco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago in a “disadvantageous position”. Likewise for the bidders, who could consult this public information, available in the administrative procurement file, in accordance with Articles 8 and 11 of the Regulations to the Law on Administrative Procurement, and therefore no discriminatory treatment against them materialized, nor, from the plaintiff's point of view, any favoritism toward the Awardee. This was abundantly reinforced – in this Court's opinion – by the testimony consistently and conclusively given by the official witness Marco Cordero Valverde during the oral and public trial (see proven facts number 34 and 35), stating that the acquisition of the \"Sharepoint\" license was due to institutional needs and not for the purpose of the administrative procurement that is the object of this proceeding.-\n\nVII. THE AVAILABILITY HELD BY SAID COMPANY REGARDING THE LICENSE FOR THE “GRS OPRISK” PRODUCT.- In the plaintiff's opinion, the bid was also incomplete because, as Soluciones Tecnológicas para Riesgos S.A. Sotemrisa was the owner of the copyrights for the “GRS OpRisk” product and without there being any assignment of those rights in the administrative file, the awarded company Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. could not legally deliver the source codes of that system. The defendant Bank, for its part, indicated that on various occasions, the awardee proved that it did have the right to deliver the source code of the “GRS OpRisk” application. In the opinion of this Court, the defendant Bank's representation is correct, since on this point clause 83 of the Tender Specifications (Cartel), named “Indispensable Condition”, established that: “The bidder must be an authorized factory distributor of the product offered; for this purpose, an original certification from the manufacturer or a notarized certified photocopy demonstrating said condition must be provided. The bidder must present proof, by means of a notarized sworn statement, of being the owner, or being duly authorized to use and commercialize the software licenses which it will use to provide the services to the Bank.” (Highlighting is not from the original). The wording of this article of the Tender Specifications (Cartel) is not the most appropriate, as it lacks precision when establishing how the distributor status is accredited. For the undersigned, what this clause states are two different ways of verifying said status: By means of a certification issued by the manufacturer or, by means of a sworn statement. Note also that there is confusion regarding the status of distributor; however, what matters is to prove the possibility of selling the computer program in question to others, regardless of the manufacturer status, and this was indeed demonstrated by the co-defendant Métodos Avanzados S.A., since the fulfillment of this tender specifications (cartel) condition can be observed, first in the bid, specifically, with the documents appearing on folios 432 (sworn statement) and 431 of the administrative file, second, in the correction (subsanación) ordered by the Bank, through the sworn statement on folio 822 of the administrative file, and finally, through the note provided by Métodos Avanzados on December 12, 2011, from folios 1129 a 1131 of the administrative file (see proven fact number 26). Furthermore, emphasis is placed on what was stated above, regarding that the plaintiff's position is based on the idea that only the manufacturer of a good can transfer the right to its use, when – as in this case – it is possible to resort to the figure of the distributor, who, without being the producer, “…takes charge of the risks of negotiating with those, the consumers (third parties), on its own account and in its own name…” the goods produced or manufactured by the former (Judgment of the First Chamber number 606-F-S1-2013 of 08:50 hours on May 16, 2013). Thus, the plaintiff company is not right, since the awarded company was able to corroborate during the administrative procurement procedure that it held the right and standing to dispose of the “GRS OpRisk” software, so much so that Métodos Avanzados finally made material delivery of the source codes, the functionality manuals, and the technical manuals, with the former remaining in one of the Bank's safety deposit boxes, all of which was duly reviewed by the officials of the Technical Area of that Institution, in order to verify that it corresponded with the installed system (see proven fact No. 33). Thus, what is appropriate is to reject the defect thus alleged as unfounded.- \n\nVIII. THE ACCREDITATION OF THE PERSONNEL IN CHARGE OF THE SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION.- The plaintiff company's representation alleges that the specialist designated in the bid of Métodos Avanzados for the implementation of the “GRS OpRisk” system, Mr. Vladimir Guzman Mendoza, was not the one who actually was in charge of carrying out the implementation of the offered system, but rather a lady named Katia Ruales, who was not indicated in the bid and who is not an employee of the co-defendant and, on the contrary, is an official of the company Sotemrisa, a company domiciled in Ecuador, a company that did not participate in the bid.\n\nFor this Court, this line of argument also fails to prove the substantial non-conformity of the award act with the legal system, since, as has been demonstrated in proven facts no. 15 and 17, it was during the correction and clarification stage of the offer of Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. that it was recorded that Mrs. Katia Ruales Maldonado would be part of the team responsible for the system implementation. In this regard, this Court wishes to make clear to the parties that, upon examining the interrogation to which the witness Grettel Granados Chavez was subjected on this point (see recording of the oral and public trial starting at 14:36:47), specifically, regarding the intervention that Mrs. Katia Ruales had in the implementation of the “GRS OpRisk” system, it loses value, because it is based on an acknowledgment of documents focused only on one part of the offer of Métodos Avanzados, when, as already stated, this information appears precisely in the clarification document, as the witness pointed out to the lawyer of the plaintiff company, but without being able to specify the document in the administrative file. Likewise, it is noted that at folio 431 of the administrative file, in the first note from the company Soluciones Tecnológicas para Riesgos S.A. or Sotemrisa, Mr. Xavier Merino, president of that company, indicated that Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. had certified personnel to implement the product, among whom was Mrs. Katia Ruales. Thus, given that at the time and in a transparent manner, it was credited in the procurement file that Mrs. Katia Ruales Maldonado would participate in the technical implementation team for the “GRS OpRisk” system, and therefore, this was not information that had been deliberately and surprisingly concealed, thereby generating unequal treatment with other bidders or bad faith conduct on the part of the awarded company toward the contracting Administration, it is appropriate to also dismiss this allegation and continue with the examination of the remaining points of this claim.\n\n**C.- REGARDING THE ACCREDITATION AND QUALIFICATION OF THE EXPERIENCE ITEM .-**\n\n**IX. REGARDING WHETHER THE CONTRACTOR COMPANY HAD TO HOLD THE STATUS OF SOFTWARE “DEVELOPER”.-** The plaintiff company maintained that this administrative procurement sought a firm that had a condition of software “developer,” and this circumstance, in its opinion, applied for several purposes. The main purpose was to accredit the experience of the bidding firm; however, it also pertained to other matters, for example, the capacity to provide the “GRS OpRisk” software. Nevertheless, since these other topics have already been resolved or will be the subject of a specific pronouncement, they will not be taken into account when resolving this line of argument, which will focus on what concerns the experience item. In other words, that status of a software “developer” firm will be examined solely regarding the allegation that during the bid evaluation stage, only experience in the development of computer products should have been taken into account. In this respect, the thesis of the plaintiff party is disproven for the same reason on which the contracting Administration partially upheld the appeal for revocation filed by Desarrollos Informáticos Deinsa S.A.: The awarded company submitted the affidavit that was the requirement established in the bid specifications to accredit this item. In the administrative resolution of the Deputy General Management of Banco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago, issued at 3:00 p.m. on December 14, 2011 (see proven fact no. 27), it was established, in relevant part: *“…Now, in relation to the experience requested in point 100, in accordance with the review of the procurement file, the appellant was only assigned 5 points; however, taking into consideration that the experience indicated in point 100 was to be corroborated by means of an affidavit, it is clear that there was an error in the assignment of points, since the appellant, at folios 781 to 782, proceeds to provide the affidavit requested by the bid specifications, which is why it was also entitled to the other 15 points established by the factor…”* (f. 1135 of the administrative file. Highlighting is not from the original). In this sense, it is possible to observe in the administrative procurement file the affidavit of the representative of the company Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., which appears at folio 432 and indicates what was requested in point 100 of the Bid Specifications: experience of 4 years in the development of operational risk assessment applications in the Banks of Costa Rica, General Rumiñahui, and Pichincha. Likewise, the contacts are attached, which were corroborated by the contracting Administration. In this regard, the witness Grettel Granados Chavez, an official of the Operational Risk Area of the Risk Directorate of the defendant Bank and responsible for the administrative procurement process in question, declared during the oral and public trial (see recording of the oral and public trial starting at 14:26:42 hours) that the score corresponding to the experience and references items was assigned to Métodos Avanzados because it was deemed to comply with what was required in the bid specifications, regarding three years of experience in the development of operational risk assessment systems, which they verified *“…with the declaration that was requested and with the references mentioned…”* (recording of the oral and public trial from 14:26:59 hours to 14:27:08 hours).\n\n**X. CONTINUATION.-** The Court’s attention is drawn to the fact that the bid specifications did not specify the admissibility of the offer or that its evaluation percentage would be affected by the condition of whether or not it was a “software developer” company, in which case it would have been desirable to have external and objective parameters to define that concept, starting at a minimum by having defined that notion. However, that was not the case; numeral 72 of the Bidding Specifications, in a very limited manner, confined itself to establishing the following rule: *“…The bidder must have a minimum experience of three years in the development of applications in Operational Risk assessment systems, both nationally and internationally. An affidavit must be provided stating the years of experience of the bidder…”* In this way, all bidders—under equal conditions—complied with this admissibility requirement simply by submitting the affidavit, which indeed occurred in the case of Métodos Avanzados, as explained in the preceding whereas clause. Also, the Court notes that despite constituting the most important of its arguments and therefore its most relevant procedural burden, the plaintiff party, firstly, also failed to demonstrate from a technical perspective what that notion consisted of and why the actions of the Administration are contrary to technical legality by attributing that status to someone who does not possess it, and secondly, perhaps most seriously of all, directed its litigious effort toward an aspect unrelated to the award act, as it is, on the contrary, a matter pertaining to the bid specifications themselves, since that is where the requirement was established. In that sense and principally, based on the explanation given by the witness Grettel Granados Chaves (see proven facts numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 37), as an official of the body whose need was being addressed and one of those responsible for the procurement, this Court has sensed that the possible origin of the non-conformity pointed out here by the Plaintiff focuses on the mistaken treatment that the Bank gave in the bid specifications to this condition of being a “software developer” and the significance of this for the procurement, because if, as the witness stated, the Bank’s interest lay in accrediting the experience the bidder had *“…on the system (…) on the parameters required underneath the system…”,* the question then arises: *Was it really a minimum, invariable, and fundamental condition to satisfy the Administration’s need?* Despite this being a reasonable question, the undersigned consider that this is not part of the subject matter of this proceeding, because the plaintiff party did NOT challenge the bid specifications at any time, nor has it derived any claim in that regard, leaving the conditions indicated in the bid specifications unaltered.-\n\n**XI. IN SUMMARY.-** In summary of this point, this Chamber wishes to clearly establish for the parties that the lack, or not, of the condition of being a “software developer” on the part of Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. is not a defect affecting the award act, given that, first, said company complied with what was required in that regard in the bid specifications, which was further corroborated by the Administration, and second, that going beyond this actually implies—despite all the litigious work carried out throughout the proceeding—an unnecessary and useless effort, since the plaintiff party itself filed its claim against the award, NOT against the bid specifications, which is where the requirement and the manner of complying with it were determined, and where the term “development” of software was mistakenly used due to a lack of definition thereof and objective parameters for its verification. Consequently, since the alleged defect is unfounded, this Chamber will continue with the analysis of the remaining points.-\n\n**XII. REGARDING THE ALLEGED ACCREDITATION OF THIRD-PARTY EXPERIENCE TO THE OFFER OF MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A..**- The representation of the plaintiff company alleged in the conclusions of the oral and public trial that the awarded firm, Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., *“…did not present any consortium at the time of, well, submitting the bid, nor of participating with the codefendant company here. These two companies do not share representatives, do not share names, do not share corporate names. It is a company created only in the year 2010, when three years of experience was requested, which it did not meet, since there are not three years of experience from 2010 to 2011…”* (recording of the oral and public trial starting at 15:58:48 hours). Now, on this point, we already partially referred to it when the first of the nullity allegations was resolved; however, it is worth stating that, upon analyzing the offer, as well as the award act and the administrative contract finally signed, it is not observed, nor has it been proven, that third parties, natural or legal persons, national or foreign, had assumed contractual commitments or made offerings within the offer submitted by Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. Nor is it inferred, nor has it been proven, that in the affidavit at folio 432 of the administrative file, submitted with the offer, said company requested or declared the experience of third parties as part of its experience in the business. Finally, and most importantly, for this Chamber, it was not demonstrated in the proceeding that either the affidavits or the reference letters were false, so it is not legally possible to invalidate the experience that the awarded company managed to prove by that means. Thus, it seems strange to this Court that the plaintiff Company claims this as a defect of the award act, when this clearly has not happened, or at least—it is reiterated—no evidence has been provided in that sense. For this reason, the pronouncement of the Contraloría General de la República number R-DCA-522-2008 of 08:00 hours on October 3, 2008, is also not applicable to the specific case in the manner alleged by the plaintiff company. Therefore, as this allegation is openly unfounded, it is rejected.-\n\n**D.- REGARDING THE ACCREDITATION AND QUALIFICATION OF THE REFERENCES ITEM:**\n\n**XIII. REGARDING THE FORMALITIES OF THE PRIVATE DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED WITH THE OFFER OF MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A..**- The representation of the plaintiff party questioned that the documentation submitted with the offer, specifically, the reference letters and the note from Sotemrisa, as well as the second note from the latter, documents visible at folios 421 to 431 and 1130 of the administrative file, did not comply with the respective legalization requirements, as they were documents originating from abroad. It alleged in its conclusions: *“…we have that, without complying with the requirements established by law, the Code, specifically, the Civil Procedure Code, the Notarial Code in its article 14, and the Commerce Code, letters and documents are accepted that do not come fully legalized, that do not come complying with the chain of legality established by our… our legislation. This is also proven by the statement of the, of the witness, from bancredito, where she affirms that indeed, well, she never saw those authentications, which were carried out by a Costa Rican notary public, and if the documents came from abroad, well they should have been, come apostilled or consularized in order to have effect, well, legality here in Costa Rica…”* (recording of the oral and public trial from 15:53:32 hours to 15:54:22 hours). The representation of the defendant Bank limited itself to indicating on this point that this documentation came certified by a notary public, despite which, they proceeded to verify the veracity of the information contained in the data directly with the foreign Banks. Thus, having analyzed the arguments and existing evidence, this Court considers that the plaintiff party is partially correct regarding this point; however, as will be seen, this does not lead to a substantial change in the challenged conduct and therefore is inconsequential for what is sought by the plaintiff company. Let us see: in the definitive version of the bid specifications, the following was established in this regard: *“101. References of the bidder in the implementation of Operational Risk Assessment Systems. (Value 30 points) 10 points will be assigned to the bidder who submits 3 reference letters demonstrating experience in the development and support of Operational Risk Assessment systems. 20 points will be assigned to the bidder who submits 1 reference letter demonstrating experience in the development and support of an Operational Risk Assessment system in public or private banking institutions (nationally or internationally). The maximum score (30 points) will be assigned to the bidder who meets the two previous points, that is, who submits 3 reference letters, where one or more references correspond to public or private banking institutions (nationally or internationally) in the development and support of an Operational Risk Assessment system. Each reference letter must be an original or a copy certified by a notary that it is a faithful copy of the original viewed, with an issuance date no older than 6 months prior to the bid opening date. Furthermore, it must indicate the company name, telephone number, name and signature of the contact, the position held, and express reference must be made to the quality (low, medium, high) of the service provided. The Bank reserves the right to validate these reference letters. If the information provided does not match the inquiry made, this reference will be discarded and will not be taken into account for the evaluation of the offer.”* (Highlighting is not from the original). This numeral relates to article 73, which establishes as an admissibility requirement: *“…having implemented the offered system in at least one public entity of the National Financial System…”* for which *“…reference letters from the institutions must be provided…”*. It is thus observed that the Bank, despite establishing that reference letters from abroad could be submitted, omitted to indicate in the Bid Specifications the form in which they were to be submitted, such that one must resort to the legal system in order to determine the applicable rules to the formalities that, from the outset, said letters had to satisfy in order to have legal effects in Costa Rica. Firstly, it is worth clarifying that the plaintiff party has directed this defect exclusively at the documents executed abroad, thus we can set aside the reference letter signed by Alejandro Sebiani representing Banco de Costa Rica (f. 427 of the administrative file) and the second note from Sotemrisa (f. 1130 of the administrative file), this latter because it has not been proven that it was executed outside the country. It is noted that, in this Court’s opinion, this circumstance in turn allows for correcting what happened with the first note from Sotemrisa dated August 30, 2011, for the reasons that will be stated a little later.-\n\n**XIV. CONTINUATION.-** Secondly, it is pointed out that the plaintiff party also errs in alleging that these documents prepared abroad had to be “apostilled,” because the documents in question are not of a public nature, since they were not issued by a foreign public authority or by persons holding public power to do so. In this sense, article 1 of the Convention for the elimination of the requirement of legalization for foreign public documents or Apostille Convention, ratified by our country through Law No. 8923 of February 22, 2011, establishes: *“The present Convention shall apply to public documents which have been executed in the territory of one Contracting State and which must be produced in the territory of another Contracting State. For the purposes of the present Convention, the following are deemed to be public documents: a) documents emanating from an authority or an official connected with the courts or tribunals of the State, including those emanating from a public prosecutor, a clerk of a court or a process-server (“huissier de justice”); b) administrative documents; c) notarial acts; d) official certificates which are placed on documents signed by persons in their private capacity, such as official certificates recording the registration of a document or the fact that it was in existence on a certain date and official and notarial authentications of signatures. However, the present Convention shall not apply: a) to documents executed by diplomatic or consular agents; b) to administrative documents dealing directly with commercial or customs operations.”* (Highlighting is not from the original). Thus, since it has not been proven that the documents in question constitute public documents, particularly under the terms of the cited numeral, it is possible to assert that indeed they did not have to be subjected to “apostilling,” that is, to the procedure provided for in that international legal instrument. Finally, it remains to be reviewed whether, since they constitute private documents that contain at most a legal act, insofar as, due to the declaration contained therein, they are expected to have a legal effect in Costa Rica, consisting of accrediting a requirement of an administrative procurement, said documents had to be subjected or not to a legalization procedure, be it through the diplomatic-consular route or of a notarial nature. This is precisely the thesis of the plaintiff party, which, however, does not establish a solid legal basis, at most invoking numeral 14 of the Notarial Code, referring to the notarial function of the consular personnel of the Republic’s foreign service; however, none of these regulatory bodies, nor even Law No. 46-A of July 7, 1925, the Organic Law of the Consular Service, following the line set by the plaintiff’s representation, establishes the duty to subject private documents issued abroad to any form of legalization as an indispensable condition for them to have effect in the country. The same can also be affirmed in relation to the Law on Administrative Procurement and its regulations; however, article 3 of this Law establishes that: *“…The activity of administrative procurement is subject to the norms and principles of the administrative legal system…”* and in this regard, the General Law of Public Administration in article 294 does prescribe the legalization of documents submitted to the public Administration as a condition for their efficacy. That numeral provides: *“Article 294.- Every document presented by interested parties shall conform to the following: a) If it was issued outside of Costa Rica, it must be legalized; and b) If it is drafted in a foreign language, its translation must be attached, which may be done by the party.”* This wording leaves no doubt to the Court that the normative scope of that provision covers public and private documents alike (see judgment of this Section—with a different composition—number 12-2012 of 09:00 hours on February 27, 2012). For this reason, the legalization procedure, whether of a consular or notarial nature, is fully applicable to the reference letters prepared in Quito, Ecuador, because they are—it is insisted—private documents. Now, given that the Law on Administrative Procurement provides in its article 3 that *“…The nullity regime of the General Law of Public Administration shall apply to administrative procurement…”* and in its article 32 that: *“The administrative contract substantially in conformity with the legal system shall be valid…”,* which is consistent in turn with the terms of articles 128 and 158.2 of the General Law of Public Administration, this Court must subsequently determine whether the identified defect constitutes or not a substantial non-conformity of the award act.\n\nThus, the undersigned consider that, in light of the provisions of articles 165 a 167 LGAP, it would at most be a case of a defective presence of an element of the act, not its absence, and therefore it would be subject to correction and convalidation (subsanación y convalidación), as provided for in numerals 285 and 287 LGAP and 42.j LCA and 80 of its regulations, by presenting a new letter that would have completed the consular or notarial legalization process, as this is a situation that is in principle invariable, given that it was a fact that occurred in the past, so it is not apparent how this could have caused unfavorable treatment to the other bidders (oferentes). However, given that this was not noticed by the contracting Administration, nor corrected at the instance of a party by the awarded company –unlike what occurred with the Sotemrisa note–, the documents in question, namely the reference letters signed in Quito, Republic of Ecuador, by Silvia Neira Burneo representing Banco General Rumiñahui (f. 429 of the administrative file) and by Juan Carlos Beltrán representing Banco Pichincha (f. 425 of the administrative file), therefore lack legal efficacy (eficacia jurídica) for the Public Administration, including within this notion the Banco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago pursuant to article 1 of the Administrative Contracting Law (Ley de Contratación Administrativa) and 1 of the General Public Administration Law (Ley General de la Administración Pública). Consequently, if these letters could not be granted legal effects, the Administration should not have taken them into account for the evaluation of the Métodos Avanzados bid regarding item N° 101 of the Tender Document (Cartel).-\n\nXV. CONTINUATION.- Nevertheless, and despite all of the foregoing, this Tribunal concludes that in this specific case, this defect (vicio) is not capable of constituting a substantial non-conformity of the award act (acto de adjudicación), since in any case the reason (motivo) for the act remains invariable. As will be seen next, the awarded company continues to hold the sufficient score to be considered the most suitable option for contracting. Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Más S.A. still retains as accredited the reference letter issued by the Banco de Costa Rica, since this has not been challenged by the plaintiff (actora) here. In this way, as observed in item n° 101 of the Tender Document, previously transcribed, by means of said reference the Tribunal observes that it is possible to maintain the score of the second component of this item (20 points), according to proven fact number 36 and folios 994 a 1004, 1012 a 1016, 1022 and 1023 of the administrative file, since the contracting Administration verified there that the offered product corresponded to a system for operational risk assessment (valoración de riesgo operativo) in a financial institution. Likewise, given that a total of three reference letters were presented, and that - as resolved here - two of them could not be taken into account, this allows us to assert, regarding the first component of 10 points, that the bidder Métodos Avanzados did meet one-third of the evaluation percentage, which would be equivalent to 3.33 points. Consequently, out of the total possible maximum of 30 points for this item, the bid of Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. would correspond a total of 23.33 points, which, added to the other subtotals obtained, would yield a sum of 89.33 points, a score that would equally surpass the 70 points obtained by the plaintiff here, after the appeal for reversal (recurso de revocatoria) that it filed at the time against the award act. Therefore, given that the declaration of the error committed by the Administration does not translate into a substantial change in the legal situation of the parties, the appropriate course is to preserve the effects of the award act in accordance with the principle in favor of the act (a favor acti) or of conservation of administrative acts (principio de conservación de los actos administrativos) (Art. 168 LGAP) and the principle of conservation of the bid (Art. 4 LCA). In other words, since accepting the nullity sought by the plaintiff based on this defect would lead to nothing, given that it is insubstantial to the final result of the act and nullity for nullity’s sake is inappropriate (procedural principle \"pas de nullite sans grief\" or no nullity without prejudice), pursuant to article 223 of the General Public Administration Law, what is legally correct is to declare this argument also unfounded, as is hereby ordered.-\n\nXVI. ON THE POSSIBLE FALSITY OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THE REFERENCE LETTERS AND IN THE SWORN DECLARATIONS (DECLARACIONES JURADAS).- Throughout the process, including in the opening arguments and in the conclusions, the representation of the plaintiff has insisted on a falsity of the affirmations contained in the reference letters and sworn declarations provided by the firm Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. For example, regarding the letters provided with the bid, it indicated “…which turned out to be completely false, since the implementations in the cited banks were carried out by Ecuadorian companies, which were never accredited in the competition in question, as DEINSA repeatedly denounced within the challenged process to Bancredito, who ignored such denouncements, and corresponds to the crime of ideological falsity (falsedad ideológica)…” (f. 164 of the judicial file). It cites as the legal basis for this argument the pronouncement of the Contraloría General de la República contained in administrative resolution number R-DAGJ-39-2003 of 12:00 hours on April 29, 2003, in which that oversight body determined, via administrative procedure, the falsity of the information contained in the bid, which undermined the standing (legitimación) of an appellant of an award act. In this regard, it must be stated, first of all, that the legal criterion expressed in an administrative act of the Contraloría General de la República is not binding on this Tribunal, which is only subject to the Constitution and the Law, pursuant to constitutional articles 49 and 154. Thus, by supplementary application according to articles 220 CPCA and 9 and 13 LGAP, it is possible to refer to the provision in article 294 of the Civil Procedure Code (Código Procesal Civil): “Article 294.- Falsity of a document in civil venue. The falsity of a document may only be declared by the civil judge, in the following cases: 1) When the criminal claim has been extinguished by prescription. 2) When the authors or accomplices of the crime have died. 3) When no responsible parties for the falsity appear. In these cases, if the document has been presented in the complaint or counterclaim, the evidence of falsity will be offered in the answer or reply. In other cases, in the presentation incident. In either case the falsity will be decided in the final judgment.” In other words, it is only possible for this Tribunal to declare a falsity of the information indicated by the plaintiff company (accionante), in the event that any of the factual hypotheses established therein have been proven, which has not occurred. Thus, to examine and resolve on the possible falsities incurred by the company Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., in the terms set forth by the legal representation of the plaintiff, is unfounded and therefore must also be rejected, as is hereby ordered.-\n\nXVII. REGARDING THE BID OF DESARROLLOS INFORMÁTICOS DEINSA.- The representation of the plaintiff at all times focused on challenging the award act under the criteria that the Métodos Avanzados bid should not have been chosen; however, it failed to demonstrate why its own bid was the suitable one for the Administration, merely stating that they had met all the requirements. In this regard, as has been demonstrated (see proven facts 1, 2, 8, 9 and 10), from the beginning of the administrative contracting process and particularly during the bid reception period, the defendant Bank not only consciously adopted a position on this matter, but also adequately informed the plaintiff company about this, communicating that its IT alternative did not meet the technical expectations of the need they were trying to satisfy with the tender. For this Tribunal, the following were of special relevance: First, that when approving the Tender Document by the Procurement Commission (Comisión de Contrataciones), the purchase of a “turnkey” product was justified as a result of the assessment of “…the effectiveness of the tools existing in the market, carrying out some visits to companies that have already implemented the tool, concluding that these meet the needs and expectations of the Bank….” These tools were restricted to two options, both indicated in the initial decision and which corresponded to the IT products: “SoftExpert Excellence Suite” and “OpRisk”, the latter being the alternative that was finally acquired by the contracting Administration, which to date has been received and implemented satisfactorily (proven fact n° 33). Second, that regarding the note of September 12, 2011, signed by Mr. Dennis Alvarado Bonilla in his capacity as President of Desarrollos Informáticos Deinsa S.A., where he questioned the procedure given that the Bank had its “Delphos” computer system since 2005, the Bank replied in official communication PROV-796/2011 dated September 16, 2011, that they had corroborated the existence in the market of other options that satisfy the needs of the Institution and that upon reviewing the available information on the products offered by that company “…it is notable that the existence of a specific tool for operational risk assessment (valoración del riesgo operativo) could not be evidenced, as required in the requirement presented by this technical area….” For which reason it was informed that while there were no impediments or limitations to its participation in the competition, they would proceed to “…evaluate the bid under similar conditions as the other possible participants….” In the opinion of this Tribunal, the business risk that the firm Desarrollos Informáticos assumed by continuing with the procedure, knowing that its product did not meet the needs of the contracting Administration, was communicated here in a timely and adequate manner. Finally, in third place, as indicated by the witness official Grettel Granados Chavez (see recording of the oral and public trial from 14:03:37 hours to 14:06:21 hours), the references and the product offered by the company Desarrollos Informáticos Deinsa S.A. did not meet their expectations, first, because the references were linked to institutions not related to the banking sector, which did not include quantitative and operational risk assessments, and second, because the system focused on the Institutional Risk Assessment System (Sistema de Valoración de Riesgo Institucional), or Sevri, established by the Contraloría General de la República or, failing that, the risk regulations for information technology from SUGEF, but not on the scope of operational risk, which was where they wished to evolve and where, due to its quantitative nature, there were important differences with what was wanted. The witness stated: “…we needed a system that, while it is true it did not disregard what the Contraloría asks of us, went a little further and assessed the quantitative part, which is what SUGEF asks of us, projecting ourselves to the regulation that it was seen was going to come out, soon, and we wanted to be acquiring the experience prior to…” (recording of oral and public trial from 14:05:23 hours). This is again reiterated by the witness, when explaining before questions from the Tribunal (see proven fact number 37 and recording of the oral and public trial from 14:59:02 to 15:01:27 hours), how the bids from Desarrollos Informáticos and Métodos Avanzados met the provisions of the tender document, but where the latter provided experience and references from institutions in the banking sector, which was what they were mainly interested in having accredited, since the contracting Administration is a banking entity.-\n\nXVIII. IN SUMMARY ON THE CHALLENGE TO THE AWARD ACT (ACTO DE ADJUDICACIÓN).- This Tribunal finds that none of the arguments put forward to challenge the award act are sufficient and adequate to support the substantial non-conformity of the act with the legal system, to which must be added that the plaintiff also failed to prove that its bid was the suitable one to meet the need of the contracting Administration through the acquisition of the contractual object.\n\nThat being the case, the appropriate course is to dismiss the challenge sought, with the consequences that will be seen below regarding the remainder of the lawsuit filed […].”\n\n…it is contrary to the principle of efficiency and the principle of equality of bids *for the Administration to have to proceed to interpret or complete the bid with elements, components, or data absent from the content of the bid*, which would violate the principle of equality, vis-à-vis bidders who included all the necessary elements in their sealed bids” […] “For the resolution of the case under analysis, it is established that *the Administration had no knowledge of the need for the Mono Project component, until the statement made by the appealing company* and the subsequent response from the awarded company, since, by not having included it, priced it, nor even mentioned it in its bid, there was no obligation on the part of the awarded company to deliver it and, on the contrary, it leaves the Administration at a disadvantage by not having clearly stated, before the opening of bids, the manner in which it intended to fulfill the object required by the Administration…” (Highlighting is not from the original). Here, precisely, one of the primary lines of argument maintained by the plaintiff during the proceedings is synthesized, particularly during the oral and public hearing: It seeks the nullity of the award act due to violation of the principles of free competition, equality, efficacy, and efficiency, based on the fact that, despite the Awardee being obligated to provide all the necessary licenses for the full functionality of its IT tool, such as the Sharepoint license, the defendant Bank, in an attitude of favoritism towards that company –as the plaintiff explicitly alleges–, proceeded to complete the bid of Métodos Avanzados by acquiring said license, which it also qualified as an illegal copy, since it argues that the version used by the defendants was not available on the market, thus asserting it was a “pirated” or illegal version of said software. Now, having considered the arguments and evidence provided, this Chamber has established in proven facts 1, 2, 9, 24, 34, and 35 that the defendant Bank had considered, from the preliminary hearings related to the market study and as recorded in the initial decision, that among the IT alternatives that had been taken into account was the IT tool *OpRisk*, with the characteristic *“Sharepoint Point Server 2007,”* which was considered: “…*The applications* *are developed* *under cutting-edge programming languages.* *Therefore, there would be no inconvenience for their implementation*…” That is, regardless of any other argument, the Bank had already established that this system could be implemented without any problem; indeed, knowledge of the requirement for this IT option to have the licensing for the “Sharepoint” application existed from the very beginning of the procurement process. For this reason, the administrative precedent of the Contraloría General de la República, on which the plaintiff evidently bases its case, is not applicable, since in this case, the defendant Administration, unlike what happened there, did have knowledge of that situation. Therefore, it was not a novel element or the concealment of information that could leave Banco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago at a “*disadvantage*.” Similarly, for the bidders, who could consult this public information, available in the administrative procurement file, in accordance with Articles 8 and 11 of the Regulation to the Administrative Procurement Law, no discriminatory treatment against them materialized, nor, from the plaintiff's point of view, a favoritism towards the Awardee. This was amply reinforced—in this Court's opinion—by the testimony consistently and conclusively given by the official witness Marco Cordero Valverde during the oral and public hearing (see proven facts 34 and 35), to the effect that the acquisition of the \"Sharepoint\" license was due to institutional needs and not for the purpose of the administrative procurement subject to this proceeding.-\n\nVII. THE AVAILABILITY THAT SAID COMPANY HAD REGARDING THE LICENSE FOR THE “GRS OPRISK” PRODUCT.- In the plaintiff's opinion, the bid was also incomplete because, with Soluciones Tecnológicas para Riesgos S.A. Sotemrisa being the owner of the copyright of the “GRS OpRisk” product and there being no assignment of those rights in the administrative file, the awarded company Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., could not legally deliver the source codes of that system. The defendant Bank, for its part, indicated that on several occasions, the Awardee proved that it did have the right to deliver the source code of the “GRS OpRisk” application. In this Court's opinion, the defendant Bank's representation is correct, since on this point, Clause 83 of the Request for Proposals (Cartel), titled “Indispensable Condition,” established that: *“The bidder must be an* *authorized distributor* *of the offered product from the factory; for this purpose, an original certification from the manufacturer or a notarized photocopy proving this condition must be provided. The bidder must present proof by means of a protocolized sworn statement (declaración jurada) of being the owner, or being* *duly authorized to use and commercialize the software licenses* *that it will use to provide services to the Bank.”* (Highlighting is not from the original). The wording of this article of the Request for Proposals is not the most adequate, as it lacks precision when establishing how the distributor condition is to be proven. For the undersigned, what this clause states are two different ways to verify this condition: Through a certification issued by the manufacturer or, by means of a sworn statement (declaración jurada). Note also that there is confusion regarding the condition of distributor; however, what matters is proving the possibility of selling the software program in question to others, regardless of the manufacturer condition, and this was indeed demonstrated by the co-defendant Métodos Avanzados S.A., since compliance with this request for proposals condition can be observed, first in the bid, specifically, with the documents found at folios 432 (sworn statement - declaración jurada) and 431 of the administrative file; second, in the rectification requested by the Bank, by means of the sworn statement (declaración jurada) at folio 822 of the administrative file; and finally, by means of the note provided by Métodos Avanzados on December 12, 2011, from folios 1129 a to 1131 of the administrative file (see proven fact 26). Furthermore, emphasis is placed on what has already been stated above, that the plaintiff's position is based on the idea that only the manufacturer of a good can transfer the right to its use, when -as in this case- it is possible to resort to the figure of the distributor, who, without being the producer, *“…assumes the risks of negotiating with them, the consumers (third parties), on their own account and in their own name…”* the goods produced or manufactured by the former (Judgment of the First Chamber number 606-F-S1-2013 of 08:50 hours on May 16, 2013). Thus, the plaintiff company is incorrect, since the awarded company was able to corroborate during the administrative procurement procedure that it held the right and legitimacy to dispose of the “GRS OpRisk” software, so much so that Métodos Avanzados finally delivered the source codes, the functionality manuals, and the technical manuals, with the former remaining in one of the Bank’s safety deposit boxes, all of which was duly reviewed by the officials of the Technical Area of that Institution, to verify that it corresponded with the installed system (see proven fact No. 33). Therefore, the appropriate course of action is to dismiss the alleged defect as inadmissible.-\n\nVIII. THE PROOF OF THE PERSONNEL IN CHARGE OF IMPLEMENTING THE SYSTEM.- The plaintiff's company representative alleges that the specialist designated in Métodos Avanzados's bid for the implementation of the “GRS OpRisk” system, Mr. Vladimir Guzman Mendoza, was not the person who actually carried out the implementation of the offered system, but rather a woman named Katia Ruales, who was not indicated in the bid, who is not an employee of the co-defendant, and who, on the contrary, is an official of the company Sotemrisa, a company domiciled in Ecuador and which did not participate in the bid. For this Court, this line of argument also does not prove substantial non-conformity with the legal system of the award act, since, as established in proven facts No. 15 and 17, it was during the rectification and clarification stage of Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A.'s bid that it was recorded that Ms. Katia Ruales Maldonado would be part of the team in charge of implementing the system. In this sense, this Court wishes to make clear to the parties that upon examining the questioning to which the witness Grettel Granados Chavez was subjected regarding this point (see recording of the oral and public hearing starting at 14:36:47), specifically, regarding the intervention of Ms. Katia Ruales in the implementation of the “GRS OpRisk” system, it loses value, because it is based on a review of documents focused solely on one part of Métodos Avanzados’s bid, when, as already stated, this information appears precisely in the clarification document, as the witness pointed out to the plaintiff's attorney, but without being able to specify the document in the administrative file. Likewise, the observation is made that at folio 431 of the administrative file, in the first note from the company Soluciones Tecnológicas para Riesgos S.A. or Sotemrisa, Mr. Xavier Merino, president of that company, indicated that Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. had certified personnel to implement the product, among which was Ms. Katia Ruales. Therefore, given that, timely and transparently, it was recorded in the procurement file that Ms. Katia Ruales Maldonado would participate in the technical team for the implementation of the “GRS OpRisk” system, and therefore, it would not be information that had been deliberately and surprisingly concealed, thereby generating unequal treatment with the other bidders, or behavior in bad faith on the part of the awarded company towards the contracting Administration, the appropriate course of action is to also dismiss this allegation and continue with the consideration of the remaining points of this claim.-\n\nC.- ON THE PROOF AND EVALUATION OF THE EXPERIENCE ITEM .-\n\nIX. REGARDING THE CONTRACTING COMPANY HAVING TO HOLD THE STATUS OF SOFTWARE “DEVELOPER”.- The plaintiff company maintained that this administrative procurement sought a firm with a software “developer” status, and this circumstance, in its opinion, applied for several purposes. The primary purpose was to prove the experience of the bidding firm; however, it also mattered for other issues, for example, such as the ability to dispose of the “GRS OpRisk” software. However, since these other matters have already been resolved or will be the subject of a specific ruling, they will not be taken into account when resolving this line of argument, which will focus on the matter of the experience item. In other words, that character of a software “developer” firm will be examined solely regarding the allegation that in the bid evaluation stage, only experience in the development of IT products should have been taken into account. In this regard, the plaintiff's thesis is undermined by the very reason for which the contracting Administration partially upheld the appeal for revocation filed by Desarrollos Informáticos Deinsa S.A.: The awarded company submitted the sworn statement (declaración jurada) that was the requirement established in the request for proposals (cartel) to prove this item. In the administrative resolution of the Office of the Sub-manager of Banco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago, at 15:00 hours on December 14, 2011 (see proven fact No. 27), it was established, in relevant part: *“…Now, regarding the experience requested in point 100, in accordance with the review of the procurement file, the appellant was only assigned 5 points; however, taking into consideration that* *the experience indicated in point 100 was to be corroborated by means of a sworn statement (declaración jurada), it is clear that there was an error in the assignment of points, since the appellant, in folios* *781 a* *to 782, proceeds to provide the sworn statement (declaración jurada) requested by the request for proposals (cartel)* *, which is why it was also entitled to the other 15 points established by the factor…”* (f. 1135 of the administrative file. Highlighting is not from the original). In this sense, it is possible to see in the administrative procurement file the sworn statement (declaración jurada) of the representative of Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., which appears at folio 432 and indicates what is requested in point 100 of the Request for Proposals (Cartel): 4 years of experience in the development of operational risk assessment applications in the Banks of Costa Rica, General Rumiñahui, and Pichincha. Likewise, the contacts are attached, which were verified by the contracting Administration. In this regard, the witness Grettel Granados Chavez, an official of the Operational Risk Area of the Risk Division of the defendant Bank and responsible for the administrative procurement process in question, declared during the oral and public hearing (see recording of the oral and public hearing starting at 14:26:42 hours), that the score was assigned to Métodos Avanzados corresponding to the experience and references items because it was deemed to comply with what was required in the request for proposals (cartel), regarding three years of experience in the development of operational risk assessment systems, which they verified *“…with the declaration that was requested and with the references mentioned…”* (recording of the oral and public hearing from 14:26:59 hours to 14:27:08 hours)\n\nX. CONTINUATION.- The Court notes that the request for proposals (cartel) did not specify the admissibility of the bid or that its evaluation percentage would be affected by the condition of whether or not it was a “software developer” company, in which case the desirable approach would have been external and objective parameters to define that concept, starting at a minimum by having defined that notion. However, that was not the case; point 72 of the Bid Request for Proposals (Cartel de licitación), in a very limited manner, was confined to establishing the following rule: *“…The bidder must have a* *minimum experience of three years in the development of applications* *for Operational Risk Assessment systems, both nationally and internationally. A* *sworn statement (declaración jurada) must be provided**”* *in which the years of experience of the bidder are stated…”* In this way, all bidders—under equal conditions—complied with this admissibility requirement simply by presenting the sworn statement (declaración jurada), which effectively occurred in the case of Métodos Avanzados, as explained in the preceding considerando. Also, the Court notes that despite constituting the most important of its arguments, and therefore its most significant procedural burden, the plaintiff, firstly, also did not demonstrate, from a technical perspective, what that notion consisted of and why what the Administration did is contrary to technical legality, by attributing that character to one who does not possess it; and secondly, perhaps most seriously, it focused its litigious effort on an aspect unrelated to the award act, since, on the contrary, it is a matter inherent to the request for proposals (cartel de la licitación), as it is there where the requirement was established. In that sense, and primarily, from the explanation given by the witness Grettel Granados Chaves (see proven facts numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 37), in her capacity as an official of the body whose need was to be met and one of those responsible for the procurement, this Court has perceived that the possible origin of the complaint raised here by the Plaintiff centers on the mistaken treatment given by the Bank in the request for proposals (cartel) to this condition of being a “software developer” and the significance of this for the procurement, since, as the witness stated, the Bank's interest lay in proving the bidder's experience *“…regarding the system* (…) *regarding the parameters the system required underneath…,”* the question then arises: *Was it really a minimum, invariable, and fundamental condition to satisfy the Administration's need?* Despite being a reasonable question, the undersigned consider that this is not part of the object of this proceeding, since the plaintiff did NOT challenge the request for proposals (cartel de licitación) at any time, nor has it derived any claim in this regard, leaving the conditions indicated in the request for proposals (cartel) unimpaired.-\n\nXI. IN SUMMARY.- To summarize this point, this Chamber wishes to clearly establish for the parties that the lack or not of the status of being a “software developer” on the part of Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. is not a defect that affects the award act, since, first, said company complied with what was required in this regard in the request for proposals (cartel), which was also corroborated by the Administration, and second, going beyond this implies in reality—despite all the litigious work performed throughout the proceeding—an unnecessary and useless effort, since the plaintiff itself filed its claim against the award act, NOT against the request for proposals (cartel de la licitación), which is where the requirement and the manner of complying with it were determined, and where the term “software development” was mistakenly used, based on a lack of definition thereof and objective parameters for its verification. Consequently, since the alleged defect is inadmissible, this Chamber will continue with the analysis of the remaining points.-\n\nXII. ON THE ALLEGED PROOF OF THIRD-PARTY EXPERIENCE IN THE BID OF MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A..- The plaintiff's representative alleged in the oral and public hearing conclusions that the awarded firm, Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., *“…did not present any consortium at the time, uh, of submitting the bid, nor of participating with the company co-defendant here. Those two companies do not share representatives, they do not share names, they do not share corporate names. It is a company created only in 2010, when experience of three years was required, which it did not meet, since there are not three years of experience from 2010 to 2011…”* (recording of the oral and public hearing starting at 15:58:48 hours). Now, on this point, we already partially referred to it when resolving the first of the nullity allegations; however, it is worth stating that upon analyzing the bid, as well as the award act and the administrative contract finally signed, it is not observed, nor has it been established, that third parties, natural or legal persons, domestic or foreign, assumed contractual commitments or made offers within the bid submitted by Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A.. It is also not inferred, nor has it been proven, that in the sworn statement (declaración jurada) at folio 432 of the administrative file, submitted with the bid, said company requested or declared, as part of its experience in the business, the experience of third parties. Finally, and most importantly, for this Chamber, it was not demonstrated in the proceeding that either the sworn statements (declaraciones juradas) or the reference letters were false, and therefore it is not legally possible to invalidate the experience that the awarded company proved by that means. Thus, it is strange for this Court that the plaintiff Company claims this as a defect in the award act, when clearly this has not occurred, or at least—it is reiterated—no evidence has been provided in that sense. For this reason, the pronouncement of the Contraloría General de la República No. R-DCA-522-2008 of 08:00 hours on October 3, 2008, is also not applicable to the specific case and in the manner alleged by the plaintiff company.\n\nTherefore, since this claim is openly inadmissible, it is rejected.\n\n**D.- ON THE ACCREDITATION AND QUALIFICATION OF THE REFERENCES CATEGORY :**\n\n**XIII. REGARDING THE FORMALITIES OF THE PRIVATE DOCUMENTS PROVIDED WITH THE BID BY MÉTODOS AVANZADOS DE SISTEMAS MAS S.A.**.- The plaintiff's representation questioned that the documentation provided with the bid, specifically, the reference letters and the note from Sotemrisa, as well as the second note from the latter, documents visible at folios 421 a to 431 and 1130 of the administrative file, did not comply with the respective legalization requirements, since they are documents originating from abroad. It alleged in the conclusions: *“…we have that without meeting the requirements established by law, by the Code, specifically, the Civil Procedure Code, the Notarial Code in its article 14, and the Commerce Code, letters and documents are accepted that do not come fully legalized, that do not comply with the chain of legality established by our… our legislation. This is also proven by the testimony of the Bancredito witness, where she states that indeed, she never saw those authentications, which were performed by a Costa Rican notary public, and if the documents came from abroad, then they should have been apostilled or consularized to have legal effect here in Costa Rica…”* (recording of the oral and public trial from 15:53:32 hours to 15:54:22 hours). The representation of the defendant Bank merely indicated on this point that this documentation came certified by a notary public; however, they proceeded to directly verify with the foreign Banks the truthfulness of the information contained in the data. Thus, having analyzed the existing arguments and evidence, this Court considers that the plaintiff is partially correct regarding this point; however, as will be seen, this does not lead to a substantial change in the challenged conduct and, therefore, is inconsequential to the claim sought by the plaintiff company. Let us see: in the definitive version of the bid specifications, the following was established in this regard: *“101. References of the bidder in the implementation of Operational Risk Assessment Systems. (Value 30 points) <u>10 points will be assigned to the bidder that presents 3 reference letters</u> that demonstrate experience in the development and support of Operational Risk Assessment systems. <u>20 points will be assigned to the bidder that presents 1 reference letter</u> that demonstrates experience in the development and support of an Operational Risk Assessment system <u>in public or private banking institutions (at a national or international level</u>). The maximum score (30 points) will be assigned to the bidder that fulfills the two previous points, that is, that presents 3 reference letters, where <u>one or more references</u> <u>correspond to public or private banking institutions (at a national or international level) in the development and support of an Operational Risk Assessment system. Each <u>reference letter must be an original or a copy certified by a notary that it is a faithful copy of the original</u> that was kept in view, with an issuance date no greater than 6 months prior to the bid opening date. Furthermore, it must indicate the company name, telephone number, name and signature of the contact, the position held, and express reference must be made to the quality (low, medium, high) of the service provided. The Bank reserves the right to validate these reference letters. If the information provided does not match the consultation made, this reference will be discarded and will not be taken into account for the evaluation of the bid.”* (Emphasis is not from the original). This numeral relates to Article 73, which establishes as an admissibility requirement: *“…having implemented the offered system in at least one public entity of the National Financial System…”* for which *“…the reference letters from the institutions must be provided…”* . It is observed that, although the Bank established that reference letters from abroad could be presented, it omitted to indicate in the Bid Specifications the form in which they should be presented, such that it is necessary to resort to the legal system to determine the applicable rules for the formalities that such letters had to satisfy from the outset, in order for them to have legal effects in Costa Rica. Firstly, it is worth specifying that the plaintiff has directed this defect exclusively at the documents produced abroad, thus we can exclude the reference letter signed by Alejandro Sebiani on behalf of the Banco de Costa Rica (f. 427 of the administrative file) and the second note from Sotemrisa (f. 1130 of the administrative file), the latter because it has not been proven that it was produced outside the country. It is noted that in the opinion of this Court, this circumstance, in turn, makes it possible to rectify what happened with the first note from Sotemrisa dated August 30, 2011, for the reasons that will be stated a little further on.-\n\n**XIV. CONTINUATION.-** Secondly, it is noted that the plaintiff also errs in alleging that these documents prepared abroad had to be “apostilled,” because the documents in question are not of a public nature, as they were not issued by a foreign public authority or by persons holding public power to do so. In this sense, Article 1 of the Convention abolishing the requirement of legalization for foreign public documents, or the Apostille Convention, ratified by our country through Ley N° 8923 of February 22, 2011, establishes: “*<u>This Convention shall apply to public documents</u> which have been executed in the territory of one Contracting State and which must be produced in the territory of another Contracting State. For the purposes of this Convention, the following are deemed to be public documents: a) documents emanating from an authority or an official connected with the courts or tribunals of the State, including those emanating from a public prosecutor, a clerk of a court or a process-server (“huissier de justice”); b) administrative documents; c) notarial acts; d) official certificates which are placed on documents signed by persons in their private capacity, such as official certificates recording the registration of a document or the fact that it was existent on a certain date and official and notarial authentications of signatures. However, this Convention shall not apply: a) to documents executed by diplomatic or consular agents; b) to administrative documents dealing directly with commercial or customs operations.”* (Emphasis is not from the original). In this way, given that it has not been proven that the documents in question constitute public documents, particularly under the terms of the cited numeral, it is possible to assert that indeed they should not have been subjected to “apostilling,” that is, to the procedure provided for in that international legal instrument. Finally, it remains to be reviewed whether, being private documents that contain, at most, a legal act, insofar as the declaration contained therein is expected to have a legal effect in Costa Rica—consisting of accrediting a requirement of an administrative contracting procedure—said documents should have been subjected or not to a legalization (legalización) procedure, whether through the diplomatic-consular route or the notarial route. This is precisely the thesis of the plaintiff, which however does not establish a solid legal foundation; at most, it invokes numeral 14 of the Notarial Code, referring to the notarial function of the consular personnel of the Republic's foreign service; however, in none of these normative bodies, nor in Ley N° 46-A of July 7, 1925, the Organic Law of the Consular Service, following the line set by the plaintiff's representation, is the duty established to subject <u>private documents</u> issued abroad to some form of legalization, as an indispensable condition for them to have effects in the country. The same can be affirmed regarding the Administrative Contracting Law and its Regulation; however, Article 3 of this Law establishes that: *“…The administrative contracting activity is subject to the norms and principles of the administrative legal system…”* and in this regard, the General Law of Public Administration in Article 294 does prescribe the legalization of documents presented to the Public Administration, as a condition for their effectiveness. That numeral provides: *“Article 294.- <u>Every document presented by interested parties shall conform to the following: a) If issued outside Costa Rica, it must be legalized</u>; and b) If drafted in a foreign language, its translation must be provided, which may be done by the party.”* This wording leaves no doubt to the Court that the normative scope of that provision indistinctly covers public and private documents (see judgment of this Section –with a different composition- number 12-2012 at 09:00 hours on February 27, 2012). For this reason, the legalization procedure, whether of a consular or notarial nature, is fully applicable to the reference letters produced in Quito, Ecuador, as they are –it must be insisted– private documents. Now, since the Administrative Contracting Law provides in its Article 3 that *“…The regime of nullities of the General Law of Public Administration shall apply to administrative contracting…”* and in its Article 32, that: *“The administrative contract that is substantially in conformity with the legal system shall be valid…,”* which is consistent, in turn, with the terms of Articles 128 and 158.2 of the General Law of Public Administration, this Court must subsequently determine whether the indicated defect constitutes or not a substantial non-conformity of the award act. The undersigned thus consider that indeed, in light of the provisions of Articles 165 a to 167 LGAP, it would be, at most, the defective presence of an element of the act, not its absence, and therefore it would be subject to rectification and validation, as provided for in numerals 285 and 287 LGAP and 42.j LCA and 80 of its Regulation, through the presentation of a new letter that had complied with the consular or notarial legalization procedure, as it is a situation that is in principle invariable, since it involved a past event, such that it is not seen how this could have caused unfavorable treatment to the other bidders. However, since this was not noticed by the contracting Administration, nor rectified at the instance of the awarded company –unlike what happened with the Sotemrisa note–, the documents in question, namely the reference letters signed in Quito, Republic of Ecuador, by Silvia Neira Burneo on behalf of Banco General Rumiñahui (f. 429 of the administrative file) and by Juan Carlos Beltrán on behalf of Banco Pichincha (f. 425 of the administrative file), therefore lack legal effectiveness for the Public Administration, including in this notion the Banco Crédito Agrícola de Cartago according to Article 1 of the Administrative Contracting Law and Article 1 of the General Law of Public Administration. If consequently, these letters could not be granted legal effects, the Administration should not have taken them into account for the assessment of the bid from Métodos Avanzados regarding point No. 101 of the Bid Specifications.-\n\n**XV. CONTINUATION.-** However, and despite all the foregoing, this Court concludes that in the specific case, this defect is not capable of configuring a substantial non-conformity of the award act, since in any case, the grounds for the act remain invariable, because as will be seen next, the awarded company continues to hold a sufficient score to be considered the most suitable option for contracting. Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. still retains, as accredited, the reference letter issued by the Banco de Costa Rica, since this has not been questioned by the plaintiff here. In this way, as observed in point No. 101 of the Bid Specifications, transcribed above, through said reference, the Court observes that it is possible to maintain the score for the second component of this category (20 points), according to proven fact number 36 and folios 994 a to 1004, 1012 a to 1016, 1022, and 1023 of the administrative file, since the contracting Administration verified there that the offered product corresponded to a system for operational risk assessment in a financial entity. Likewise, given that a total of three reference letters were presented, of which -as has been resolved here- two could not be taken into account, this allows asserting, regarding the first component of 10 points, that the bidder Métodos Avanzados did comply with one-third of the evaluation percentage, which would be equivalent to 3.33 points. Consequently, of the total possible maximum of 30 points for this category, the bid by Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A. would be entitled to a total of 23.33 points, which, added to the other subtotals obtained, would yield a sum of 89.33 points, a score that would equally surpass the 70 points obtained by the plaintiff here, after the motion for revocation that it filed at the time against the award act. Thus, since the declaration of the error committed by the Administration does not translate into a substantial change in the legal situation of the parties, the proper course is to preserve the effects of the award act in accordance with the principle *favor acti* or the preservation of administrative acts (Art. 168 LGAP) and the principle of bid preservation (Art. 4 LCA). In other words, given that accepting the nullity sought by the plaintiff based on this defect would lead nowhere, since it proves to be insubstantial to the final result of the act and nullity for nullity's sake is inadmissible (procedural principle *“pas de nullite sans grief”*, or no nullity without prejudice), in accordance with Article 223 of the General Law of Public Administration, what is adjusted to Law is to also declare this claim inadmissible, as is hereby ordered.-\n\n**XVI. ON THE POSSIBLE FALSEHOOD OF THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THE REFERENCE LETTERS AND IN THE SWORN DECLARATIONS.-** Throughout the process, including in the opening arguments and in the conclusions, the plaintiff's representation has insisted on a falsehood of the statements contained in the reference letters and sworn declarations provided by the firm Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A.. For example, in relation to the letters provided with the bid, it indicated *“…which turned out to be completely false, because the implementations in the cited banks were carried out by Ecuadorian companies, which were never accredited in the competition in question, as DEINSA repeatedly denounced within the process questioned to Bancredito, who ignored such denunciations, and it constitutes the crime of ideological falsehood…”* (f. 164 of the judicial file). It cites as the legal basis for this claim the ruling of the Contraloría General de la República contained in administrative resolution number R-DAGJ-39-2003 at 12:00 hours on April 29, 2003, in which that oversight body determined, via an administrative route, the falsehood of the information contained in the bid, which undermined the standing of an appellant against an award act. In this regard, it is worth saying first that the legal opinion expressed in an administrative act of the Contraloría General de la República is not binding on this Court, which is only subject to the Constitution and the Law, in accordance with Articles 49 and 154 of the Constitution. Thus, and by supplementary application according to Articles 220 CPCA and 9 and 13 LGAP, it is possible to refer to the provisions of Article 294 of the Civil Procedure Code: *“Article 294.- Falsehood of a document in civil court. The falsehood of a document may only be declared by the civil judge in the following cases: 1) When the criminal claim has been extinguished by the statute of limitations. 2) When the authors or accomplices of the crime have died. 3) When those responsible for the falsehood do not appear. In these cases, if the document was presented in the complaint or counterclaim, the evidence of the falsehood shall be offered in the response or in the reply. In other cases, in the incident of presentation. In either case, the falsehood shall be decided in the final judgment.”* In other words, it is only possible for this Court to declare a falsehood of the information indicated by the plaintiff company in the event that one of the factual hypotheses established therein has been proven, which has not occurred. Therefore, entering into hearing and resolving on the possible falsehoods incurred by the company Métodos Avanzados de Sistemas Mas S.A., in the terms set forth by the plaintiff's legal representation, is inadmissible and, therefore, must also be rejected, as is hereby ordered.-\n\n**XVII. REGARDING THE BID BY DESARROLLOS INFORMÁTICOS DEINSA.-** The plaintiff's representation at all times focused on challenging the award act under the criterion that the bid by Métodos Avanzados should not have been chosen; however, it failed to demonstrate why its own bid was the most suitable for the Administration, limiting itself to saying that they had met all the requirements. In this regard, as was demonstrated (see proven facts 1, 2, 8, 9, and 10), from the beginning of the administrative contracting process and particularly during the bid reception period, the defendant Bank not only consciously adopted a position in this respect, but also adequately informed the plaintiff company about this, communicating that its informatics alternative did not meet the technical expectations of the need that the bidding process sought to satisfy. For this Court, the following were of special relevance: first, that at the time of approving the Bid Specifications by the Procurement Committee, the purchase of a “turnkey” product was justified as a result of the assessment of *“…the effectiveness of the tools available on the market, making some visits to companies that already have the tool implemented, <u>concluding that these meet the Bank's needs and expectations</u>…”* These tools were restricted to two options, both indicated in the initial decision and corresponding to the informatics products: “SoftExpert Excellence Suite” and “OpRisk,” the latter being the alternative that was finally acquired by the contracting Administration, which to date has been received and implemented satisfactorily (proven fact No. 33). Second, that in response to the note of September 12, 2011, signed by Mr. Dennis Alvarado Bonilla as President of Desarrollos Informáticos Deinsa S.A., where he questioned the procedure given that the Bank had had its “Delphos” computer system since 2005, the Bank replied in official letter PROV-796/2011 dated September 16, 2011, that they had corroborated the existence on the market of other options that satisfy the needs of the Institution, and that upon reviewing the available information on the products offered by that company *“…it is striking that <u>the existence of a specific tool for operational risk assessment could not be evidenced</u> as stated in the requirement presented by this technical area….”* For this reason, it was informed that although there were no impediments or limitations to its participation in the competition, they would proceed to *“…evaluate the bid under similar conditions as the other possible participants…”* . In this Court's opinion, the firm Desarrollos Informáticos was timely and adequately informed here of the business risk it was assuming by moving forward with the procedure, knowing that its product did not meet the needs of the contracting Administration. Thirdly, according to the testimony of the official witness Grettel Granados Chavez (see recording of the oral and public trial from 14:03:37 hours to 14:06:21 hours), the references and the product offered by the company Desarrollos Informáticos Deinsa S.A. did not meet its expectations; first, because the references were linked to institutions not related to the banking sector, which did not include operational and quantitative risk assessments; and second, because the system was centered on the Institutional Risk Assessment System, or Sevri, established by the Contraloría General de la República, or on the technology risk regulations of SUGEF, but not on the scope of operational risk, which represented the intended area of evolution and where, due to its quantitative nature, significant differences existed with what was desired.-\n\nThe witness stated: <i>\"…we needed a system that, while indeed not departing from what the Contraloría requires of us, would go a little further and assess the quantitative aspect, which is what SUGEF requires of us, projecting ourselves toward the regulations that were seen to be coming out soon and we wanted to start gaining experience prior to…\"</i> (recording of the oral and public trial starting at 14:05:23 hours) This is again reiterated by the witness, when explaining in response to questions from the Tribunal (see proven fact number 37 and recording of the oral and public trial from 14:59:02 to 15:01:27 hours), how the proposals of Desarrollos Informáticos and Métodos Avanzados complied with what was established in the tender specifications, but where the latter provided experience and references from institutions in the banking sector, which was what they were mainly interested in having accredited, since the contracting Administration is a banking entity.\n\nXVIII. IN SUMMARY REGARDING THE CHALLENGE TO THE AWARD DECISION.- This Tribunal finds that none of the arguments raised to challenge the award decision are sufficient and adequate to support the substantial inconsistency of the act with the legal system, to which it must be added that the plaintiff also failed to prove that its offer was the most suitable to satisfy the need of the contracting Administration through the acquisition of the contractual object. Thus, what follows is to dismiss the challenge sought, with the consequences that will be seen below with respect to the remainder of the filed claim […]."
}