on the principles of pricing of IT services provided to Polish public entities.
Taskscape Ltd (hereinafter referred to as the "Company") hereby presents the justification for the application of price increases for IT services provided to Polish entities from the public finance sector and other contracting entities representing public funds in the procurement of services and licenses offered by Taskscape Ltd.
The statement is informative and serves to transparently explain the economic, legal and administrative premises that influence the calculation of the Company's remuneration in new and renegotiated contracts.
1) Scope and nature of services
The company provides IT services, including in particular: software maintenance and development, integration services, operational support, administration of production environments, maintaining ICT security, incident service, and analytical and design work. These are services of high operational criticality, often provided under contracts with increased availability parameters and response times, as well as in a regulatory environment requiring increased documentation and evidentiary care.
2) General cost factors affecting prices
Price updates result from the combined impact of market and regulatory factors, including in particular:
- increase in labor costs of highly qualified specialists (including software engineers, system architects, security specialists and analysts),
- increase in the costs of licenses, subscriptions, production and maintenance tools, including the costs of data processing services in the cloud,
- increase in the costs of ensuring cybersecurity, including security tests, monitoring, response to incidents and maintaining business continuity,
- increase in legal and audit compliance costs, including contractual requirements regarding documentation, reporting, control and risk management.
- increase in the costs of court proceedings, including legal costs in relation to ongoing or unfinished court disputes involving the company or the management board.
The above factors are widely observed in the industry and in themselves justify revision of rates in longer contract horizons.
In the case of services provided to public entities, there is an additional, significant cost component that the Company is obliged to take into account in a responsible manner.
3) Costs of legal and administrative risk related to proceedings against the Company and members of its bodies
The company indicates that the provision of services to Polish public entities is associated with an increased level of legal and administrative risk, including, among others:
The risk of contractual disputes and court and administrative proceedings, including proceedings initiated by third parties or market participants, which, in the Company's opinion, are initiated without sufficient factual or legal basis and yet generate real service and organizational costs. The Company emphasizes that the conduct of the proceedings itself, regardless of its final result, requires expenditure on professional legal services, translations, analysis of evidence, preparation of procedural positions, as well as ensuring representation of the Company and its bodies.
Risk of personal exposure of management board members, consisting in the need to provide them with legal protection and compliance, including financing legal defense, support in the field of managerial civil liability and conducting preventive activities (training, internal procedures, registers of decisions, acceptance paths, conflict of interest management).
Risk of administrative and evidentiary burdens, including the need to maintain extensive technical and contractual documentation, work records, change registers, authorization paths, acceptance protocols, security and audit documentation, as well as readiness to share documents as part of inspections or proceedings. This evidentiary regime necessitates additional expenditures on configuration management, change management, incident management, and maintaining the integrity of production artifacts.
The risk of payment delays and financing costs, which in practice may increase in the event of disputes or suspension of collections, as well as when it is necessary to secure claims, create reserves for risks and maintain operational liquidity with long settlement cycles.
All the above elements contribute to a measurable total cost, which must be included in the price calculation as a premium for legal and administrative risk and the cost of compliance and legal defense.
4) The principles of how the Company takes into account risk in price calculations
The company declares that price increases do not constitute arbitrary actions, but result from the update of the cost model, which takes into account, among others:
cost of contractual and regulatory compliance, including additional work time for quality management, safety, legal and administrative teams,
the cost of professional legal services, including permanent legal duties, preparation of opinions, risk analyses, procedural positions and conducting formal correspondence,
the cost of civil liability insurance of the entrepreneur and civil liability of members of the bodies, as well as the cost of creating reserves for controversial risks,
the cost of internal controls and auditability, including maintaining procedures, reviews, registers, evidence repositories and the audit chain.
The company uses an approach in which the unit or lump sum price reflects not only the cost of creating and maintaining the functionality, but also the cost of ensuring formal defensiveness and auditability of the service, which is of particular importance in the public procurement regime.
5) Contractual context and legal bases that influence costs
In relations with public contracting entities, the Company operates in a legal environment which - due to formalism and the multitude of evidentiary obligations - significantly increases the cost of contract management. In particular, the following influences: the Act of 11 September 2019 - Public Procurement Law, the provisions of the Civil Code regulating the performance of obligations and contractual liability, the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure and the Code of Administrative Procedure regarding proceedings and documentation obligations, as well as regulations on the protection of personal data, including Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council (European Union) 2016/679 of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing personal data and on the free movement of such data.
The company indicates that in the contract practice of public entities, there are more often extensive reporting obligations, formal acceptance requirements, multi-stage approvals, as well as greater exposure to initiating disputes. This is not an assessment of the ordering parties' intentions, but a description of the objective risk profile and transaction costs that the Company must calculate to ensure stability of provision and continuity of services.
6) Proposals of alternative solutions limiting price pressure
The company remains open to structuring contracts in such a way that limits the materialization of risks and reduces costs on both sides. In particular, the Company recommends considering:
indexation clauses reflecting changes in the costs of labor, licenses and infrastructure services,
dispute resolution mechanisms at an early stage, including escalation procedures, negotiations, mediation and formal "pre-contentious" stages, i.e. pre-litigation settlement of the dispute,
precise reception criteria and scope definitions to limit interpretation discrepancies and the risk of evidentiary disputes,
mixed billing models, for example a lump sum for maintenance plus hourly billing for development, which reduces cost risk for the contractor and often lowers the total cost for the ordering party.
7) Summary
The Company declares that price increases for IT services provided to Polish public entities are justified by the actual, increasing costs of contract implementation, in particular the costs of legal and administrative risk, which also include the need to incur expenditure on handling disputes and securing the interests of the Company and members of its bodies. The Company's goal is to maintain the ability to provide services in a continuous, safe, auditable and legal manner, while maintaining a responsible risk management policy.
Taskscape Ltd declares its readiness to provide ordering parties with a more detailed, technical and economic description of price components, to the extent permitted by contractual provisions and the principles of commercial confidentiality, as well as to develop contractual solutions that reduce the risk of disputes and limit cost pressure.
Date and place: ………………………………
On behalf of Taskscape Ltd: ………………………………
Job position/function: ………………………………
The above factors have been indicated in the relevant contracts as justifying the application of increases and are commonly observed in the industry. In themselves, they justify revising rates in longer contract horizons. However, in the case of services provided to public entities, there is an additional, significant cost component that the Company is obliged to take into account in a responsible manner.
3) Costs of legal and administrative risk related to proceedings against the Company and members of its bodies
The company indicates that the provision of services to Polish public entities is associated with an increased level of legal and administrative risk, including, among others:
- Risk of contractual disputes and court and administrative proceedings, including proceedings initiated by third parties or market participants, which, in the Company's opinion, are initiated without sufficient factual or legal basis and yet generate real service and organizational costs.
- The risk of court disputes initiated by the company or the management board and, at the same time, prolonging the resolution in favor of the plaintiff of these proceedings, generating costs of maintenance, renewals or appeals brought as a result of the lengthiness or lack of recognition of the claims of the company or the management board.
- The Company emphasizes that the conduct of the proceedings itself, regardless of its final result, requires expenditure on professional legal services, translations, analysis of evidence, preparation of procedural positions, as well as ensuring representation of the Company and its bodies.
- Risk of personal exposure of management board members, consisting in the need to provide them with legal protection and compliance, including financing legal defense, support in the field of managerial civil liability and conducting preventive activities (training, internal procedures, registers of decisions, acceptance paths, conflict of interest management).
- Risk of administrative and evidentiary burdens, including the need to maintain extensive technical and contractual documentation, work records, change registers, authorization paths, acceptance protocols, security and audit documentation, as well as readiness to share documents as part of inspections or proceedings. This evidentiary regime necessitates additional expenditures on configuration management, change management, incident management, and maintaining the integrity of production artifacts.
- The risk of payment delays and financing costs, which in practice may increase in the event of disputes or suspension of collections, as well as when it is necessary to secure claims, create reserves for risks and maintain operational liquidity during long settlement cycles.
All the above elements contribute to a measurable total cost, which must be included in the price calculation as a premium for legal and administrative risk and the cost of compliance and legal defense.
4) The principles of how the Company takes into account risk in price calculations
The company declares that price increases do not constitute arbitrary actions, but result from the update of the cost model, which takes into account, among others:
- cost of contractual and regulatory compliance, including additional work time for quality management, safety, legal and administrative teams,
the cost of professional legal services, including permanent legal duties, preparation of opinions, risk analyses, procedural positions and conducting formal correspondence,
- the cost of civil liability insurance of the entrepreneur and civil liability of members of the bodies, as well as the cost of creating reserves for controversial risks,
- the cost of internal controls and auditability, including maintaining procedures, reviews, registers, evidence repositories and the audit chain.
The company uses an approach in which the unit or lump sum price reflects not only the cost of creating and maintaining the functionality, but also the cost of ensuring formal defensiveness and auditability of the service, which is of particular importance in the public procurement regime.
5) Contractual context and legal bases that influence costs
In relations with public contracting entities, the Company operates in a legal environment which - due to formalism and the multitude of evidentiary obligations - significantly increases the cost of contract management. In particular, the following influences: the Act of 11 September 2019 - Public Procurement Law, the provisions of the Civil Code regulating the performance of obligations and contractual liability, the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure and the Code of Administrative Procedure regarding proceedings and documentation obligations, as well as regulations on the protection of personal data, including Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council (European Union) 2016/679 of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing personal data and on the free movement of such data.
The company indicates that in the contract practice of public entities, there are more often extensive reporting obligations, formal acceptance requirements, multi-stage approvals, as well as greater exposure to initiating disputes. This is not an assessment of the ordering parties' intentions, but a description of the objective risk profile and transaction costs that the Company must calculate to ensure stability of provision and continuity of services.
6) Proposals of alternative solutions limiting price pressure
The company remains open to structuring contracts in such a way that limits the materialization of risks and reduces costs on both sides. In particular, the Company recommends considering:
indexation clauses reflecting changes in the costs of labor, licenses and infrastructure services,
dispute resolution mechanisms at an early stage, including escalation procedures, negotiations, mediation and formal "pre-contentious" stages, i.e. pre-litigation settlement of the dispute,
precise reception criteria and scope definitions to limit interpretation discrepancies and the risk of evidentiary disputes,
mixed billing models, for example a lump sum for maintenance plus hourly billing for development, which reduces cost risk for the contractor and often lowers the total cost for the ordering party.
7) Summary
The Company declares that price increases for IT services provided to Polish public entities are justified by the actual, increasing costs of contract implementation, in particular the costs of legal and administrative risk, which also include the need to incur expenditure on handling disputes and securing the interests of the Company and members of its bodies.
The Company's goal is to maintain the ability to provide services in a continuous, safe, auditable and legal manner, while maintaining a responsible risk management policy.
Taskscape Ltd declares its readiness to provide ordering parties with a more detailed, technical and economic description of price components, to the extent permitted by contractual provisions and the principles of commercial confidentiality, as well as to develop contractual solutions that reduce the risk of disputes and limit cost pressure.
Date and place: ………………………………
On behalf of Taskscape Ltd: ………………………………
Job position/function: ………………………………
After Brexit, the EU regulation on geo-blocking (Regulation (EU) 2018/302) no longer applies in the UK. Before Brexit, it prohibited unjustified price discrimination based on a customer's nationality, residence or place of establishment within the EU market. After the UK leaves the EU (and the end of the transition period), British companies do not have to apply this regulation to UK customers. They can therefore offer different prices to UK and EU (including Poland) customers without violating UK law.