Notícias
SPECIAL BIDDING COMMITTEE’S DECISION ON THE ADMINISTRATIVE APPEAL FILED BY BLS INTERNATIONAL SERVICES LIMITED
Beijing, 20 October 2025
- FACTS AND ADMISSIBILITY OF THE APPEAL
1. The Special Bidding Committee (“Committee”), established by Ordinance No. 5/2025 of the Ambassador of Brazil in Beijing dated 25 July 2025, received an Administrative Appeal (“Appeal”) from BLS International Services Limited (“BLS”) on 14 October 2025. BLS had notified its intent to appeal on 9 October 2025 and submitted its grounds three days later. On 17 October 2025 - three days after the Committee shared BLS’s arguments with other bidders - VF Worldwide Holdings Ltd. (“VF”) filed counterarguments.
2. In its Appeal, BLS requests that the Committee “recognize the sufficiency and validity of all the documentation submitted by BLS as demonstrative of its experience with e-Visa services, and approve its qualification in accordance with the Notice of Bidding, declaring BLS the winner of the bid.” BLS asserts that it “has successfully proved to fulfill the e-Visa criterion under the terms of the Notice of Bidding, at least for two different counties, Malaysia and Thailand, as documented on pages 44 to 66 of BLS’s Technical Qualification” (¶17). In the alternative, BLS contends that its documents “satisfy the material essence of the qualification clause, thereby fulfilling the legal objective of verifying technical capability” (¶19), arguing that “the substance and evidentiary value of the documentation must prevail over its form” (¶25). The Appellant accordingly requests the Committee to reconsider its 29 September 2025 decision disqualifying BLS from the bidding process
3. VF, in its counterarguments, argues that BLS’s current position contradicts its submissions in the writ of mandamus filed before the Federal Court of the Federal District of Brazil (Case No. 1108094-68.2025.4.01.3400), wherein BLS challenged items 7.3.1.1.1 and 7.3.1.2.1 of the Notice of Bidding - provisions requiring cumulative experience in both physical and electronic visa modalities. VF further notes that the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region (TRF-1) granted an interlocutory appeal in Case No. 1035379-43.2025.4.01.0000 and maintains that the Committee’s decision aligns with the principles of adherence to the bidding notice, impartiality, and selection of the most advantageous proposal.
4. The Committee confirms that both BLS’s Appeal and VF’s counterarguments were timely filed in accordance with item 9.4.6 of the Notice of Bidding. The merits of the Appeal are addressed below.
- MERITS OF THE APPEAL
5. Item 7.3.1 of the Notice of Bidding expressly provides that, “for technical qualification purposes, bidders must provide letters of reference from government agencies on past performance that demonstrate the following: (...)”. Although BLS and VF later contested specific sub-items of this provision, the requirement itself that qualification be evidenced by governmental letters of reference was never subject to clarification requests or legal challenges prior to the public session.
6. Consistent with settled jurisprudence of the Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts (TCU), "for the purpose of verifying bidders' technical and operational capacity, it is lawful to require proof of minimum quantities executed in works or services with similar characteristics, provided that such requirement is simultaneously limited to the portions of the contract object that are of greatest relevance and significant value, and that this requirement remains proportionate to the scale and complexity of the work or service to be performed" (TCU Precedent n. 263).
7. Art. 67, §3, of Federal Law n. 14.133/2021 further clarifies that "except in the procurement of engineering works and services, the requirements referred to in subparagraphs I and II of the caput of this article [which include certificates demonstrating operational capacity to perform similar services of equivalent or greater technological and operational complexity] may, at the discretion of the Administration, be replaced by alternative evidence demonstrating that the professional or company possesses the technical knowledge and practical experience necessary to perform services of similar characteristics. In such cases, the acceptable alternative forms of proof shall be specified in regulations” (emphasis added). This is interpretation is reinforced in TCU's Biddings and Contracts Handbook (available at https://licitacoesecontratos.tcu.gov.br/5-5-2-habilitacao-tecnica/).
8. In the present procurement, no regulation authorizes alternative forms of proof for technical-operational experience. Moreover, no bidder raised this issue before the envelope-opening session, when proposals were being finalized. To the contrary, item 7.3.1 of the Notice of Bidding unambiguously specifies the sole acceptable form of evidence: letters of reference from government agencies.
9. This requirement is not a “purely formal” condition within the meaning of Article 12, III, of Law No. 14,133/2021. Rather, it is fundamental to ensuring equality among bidders: all participants prepared their submissions under the same clear and binding rule—namely, that qualification must be substantiated by official governmental attestations. To relax this requirement after envelope opening would violate core principles of public procurement, including equality, legal certainty, and strict adherence to the bidding notice.
10. In the meeting of 26 September 202er ite 5, after noting that “the letters from national governments provided by BLS are insufficient to demonstrate [experience with electronic visa services]”, the Committee exercised its discretion under item 9.3.4 of the Notice of Bidding and requested BLS “(a) to present a letter from the national government to which it claimed to have provided e-visa services, as well as (b) copy of the relevant contracts, confirming that experience”.
11. In its Appeal, BLS merely reiterates documents already submitted during the qualification phase and in response to the Committee’s request for additional information (Annexes A-1, A-2, A-4, and A-5), along with two website screenshots (Annexes A-3 and A-6). The only government reference letters appear in Annex A-2 - and none mention experience with electronic visa services. Notably, BLS also failed to submit the contracts proving its alleged processing of 295 e-visas for a national government over the past two years, despite this being explicitly required by item 7.3.2 of the Bidding Notice and specifically requested by the Committee on 26 September 2025. Consequently, BLS has failed to meet the explicit documentary requirement set forth in item 7.3.1. The Committee’s disqualification decision therefore stands.
12. BLS further cites paragraph 34 of the Committee’s 26 September 2025 Submission to the Federal Court, where the Committee noted the existence of BLS-operated websites dedicated to e-Visa issuance and observed that “information on these websites strongly suggests BLS’s alleged experience with e-Visas.” BLS interprets this as judicial acknowledgment of its qualification (Appeal, ¶23).
13. This constitutes a misreading of the Committee’s position. The Committee deliberately used the term “suggests” and qualified the experience as “alleged.” As expressly stated in paragraph 40 of the same Submission, this observation was made solely to refute the unfounded - and indeed preposterous - allegation that the cumulative experience requirement was designed to exclude BLS in favor of another bidder. It was never an admission of compliance with the qualification criteria. Simply reading the paragraph quoted by BLS and its surrounding context proves as much.
14. Throughout this process, the Committee acted with strict impartiality and full observance of the principles enshrined in Article 5 of Law No. 14,133/2021. Notably, despite BLS’s acknowledged inability to meet the requirement - as conceded in its own 15 September 2025 Statement of Claim before the Federal Court (“if items 7.3.1.1.1 and 7.3.1.2.1 are upheld, BLS would not be deemed sufficiently experienced to participate”) - the Committee, in an exercise of procedural fairness, granted BLS additional time to supplement its governmental letters of reference to include e-Visa experience. This accommodation was extended even over VF’s fierce objection[1] and despite BLS’s prior judicial admission. Only after BLS failed to submit the required documentation within the extended deadline did the Committee proceed with disqualification.
III. DECISION
15. For the foregoing reasons, the Committee:
FINDS that BLS’s Appeal was timely filed and is therefore admissible; and, on the merits,
REJECTS the Appeal and UPHOLDS its disqualification decision dated 29 September 2025.
[1] Minutes of Meeting (26 September 2025): “The representative of VF Worldwide Holdings then asked that it be recorded that ‘(...) The Committee is in violation of the Notice of Bidding clauses 7.1.1, 7.3.1 and 9.3.3 by favoring a bidder through the non-enforcement of these requirements. Furthermore, asserting that a bidder possesses the necessary experience while failing to provide the supporting documentation constitutes a direct contradiction and, in accordance with clause 9.3.3, is sufficient grounds for disqualification. BLS should have exercised due care when submitting its qualification documents and ensured the inclusion of evidence of experience in e-visas. However it did not do so and cannot be benefited from such omission by having the opportunity to present new documents. The reliance on clause 9.3.4, as cited by BLS and adopted by the Committee, is misplaced. (...) Additionally, the Committee's conduct infringes fundamental principles enshrined in Article 5 of Law 14.133/2021, including competitiveness and legal certainty. Furthermore, the principle of equal treatment, explicitly guaranteed in Article 11, II, has not been upheld. (...) Thus, in order to avoid unlawful conduct or even liability of the Committee, no opportunity should be granted for the submission of new documents, and BLS must be disqualified immediately (...)” (emphasis added).