Hannes Snellman Advised Helmet in a Public Procurement of a New Library System for the Capital Region of Finland

Hannes Snellman acted as legal counsel to Helmet, the joint library consortium of the Capital Region of Finland, consisting of the cities of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, and Kauniainen, in connection with a complex public procurement of a new library system to be delivered as a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution. The procurement covered the full scope of the library system lifecycle, including system implementation, configuration, deployment, integrations, data migration, ongoing support and maintenance, as well as user training for library staff across all four member cities.

In light of the technical complexity and strategic significance of the project, the procurement was conducted by means of the competitive negotiated procedure under the Finnish Act on Public Procurement and Concession Contracts. This procedure allowed the dialogue with tenderers, enabling contracting authorities to refine their requirements and evaluate solutions in depth prior to the submission of final tenders.

Virva Hiiri, Director for Helsinki Online Library Services, comments: “From the perspective of library operations, tendering an important system in an international environment requires a partner who understands this in relation to public procurement legislation. As a good example, in our case, the international operating environment changed significantly in terms of information security and data protection during the negotiation process. With the help of Hannes Snellman Attorneys, this could be taken into account within the framework of the prevailing legislation. Acquiring a library system, or an operating system in general, as a public procurement is like a Rubik’s cube, where things change when one requirement is moved to another perspective.”

Our role included the full lifecycle of the procurement process, from advising on procurement strategy and drafting and reviewing all procurement documentation, including the agreement, to advising on contract award and standstill obligations. The legal advice covered both public procurement law and information technology contracting, with particular focus on SaaS-specific contractual considerations, and GDPR compliance for a multi-city library network that processes customers’ personal data.

Hannes Snellman’s team comments: “Advising Helmet on this strategically significant procurement was a true privilege, calling for the seamless integration of public procurement law, data and technology contracting expertise to secure a forward-looking solution for the public sector. We were very happy to provide the tendering competition as a service to the metropolitan area cities, resulting in a successful public procurement of a significant IT system.”

Our team included Outi Jousi, Annika Tiitola, Maria Aholainen and Jesper Nevalainen