Apostille Certificate and Legalization procedures for the documents provided by tenderers in Colombian procurement processes.

The director of the public entity “Colombia Compra Eficiente” (CCE) issued the External Circular No. 17 of February 11th of 2015, which clarifies the proceeding to obtain the Apostille Certificate and the legalization proceeding applicable to the public and private documents issued abroad that might be used in procurement processes in Colombia.

In this regard, the mentioned Circular explained that the public entities are only allowed to require the legalization of any public documents issued abroad in accordance with the Hague Convention of the Apostille of 1961. Therefore, the public entities shall not require any additional proceeding different that the one established in the Apostille Convention to certify the authenticity of such documents.

The reason why the procedures established in the Apostille Convention are sufficient to certify the authenticity of the documents issued abroad, is that it requires to the States Parties to empower a central authority that shall check and verify the issuing process in order to issue the Apostille Certificate.

Likewise, the Circular No. 17 of the CCE warns the public entities that public and private documents issued abroad must be presumed authentic. As a result of such presumption these entities are only entitled to require additional legalization procedures whenever the law demands it. (e.g. The power needed to act in a procurement process requires an additional legalization step).

The mentioned authenticity presumption also extends to the hard copies provided in a procurement process unless the Colombian law establishes that the tenderers shall present the original. As an example, the Circular points out that the public entities might accept that the tenderers present the documents required in the tender rules in hard copies, and then, in the awarding stage, and before the execution of the corresponding agreement, they must provide the same mentioned documents fulfilling the legalization procedures that the law demands (e.g. Initially a tenderer might provide a document in a different language just with a simple translation but then in the awarding step it shall provide the official translation of such document).

In our opinion, the Circular No 17 of 2015 issued by CCE is a valuable tool in order to clarify the legalization requirements in accordance to the Colombian legal framework for private and public documents that would be submitted in a procurement process in Colombia; moreover, considering that there are some public entities that do not strictly apply the Apostille Convention demanding unnecessary additional legalization procedures.