General background
One of the beneficiaries of the EUACI is the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO). Established in 2015 and reconstituted as a separate legal entity in 2024, SAPO is a prosecutorial agency with a primary mandate to prosecute top-level corruption, including criminal offences committed by senior public and local officials and cases that threaten national security. The Law “On the Prosecution Service” determines SAPO’s status, mandate, powers, and organization, while the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine defines its investigative jurisdiction.
In accordance with the Law on the Prosecutor’s Service, the organisation and conduct of the competition for the positions of Deputy Prosecutor General – SAPO Head, First Deputy Head, and Deputy Head of SAPO are carried out by the Selection Commission (hereinafter – the Selection Commission) that consists of six members:
– three persons appointed by the Prosecutor General based on proposals from the Council of Prosecutors of Ukraine, and
– three persons appointed by the Prosecutor General based on proposals from international and foreign organisations that, in accordance with international or intergovernmental agreements, have been providing Ukraine with international technical assistance in the field of preventing and combating corruption over the past three years.
Following the voluntary resignation of Deputy Head of SAPO on 14 November 2025, a vacancy arose for this position. Accordingly, on 19 March 2026, the Selection Commission was established, primarily to conduct the competition for the position of Deputy Head of SAPO.
The upcoming selection of the Deputy Head of SAPO will be the first application of substantially reformed rules provided by Law No. 3509-IX, adopted in December 2023, as part of the IMF and the EU conditionalities.
In accordance with Article 29-1 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Prosecutor’s Service”, the financing and logistical support of the activities of the Selection Commission and its members, including the Secretariat established to assist in their work, may be provided through international technical assistance.
Objective of the assignment
The objective is to engage a service provider comprising a team of 5–10 qualified legal experts to review, update and expand the existing legal knowledge test database, ensuring that all questions are legally accurate, current, unambiguous, methodologically sound and suitable for use in the selection of the Deputy Head of SAPO.
Scope of work
The service provider shall organise the work of a team of 5–10 experts and ensure substantive coverage of all four thematic blocks:
• Criminal legislation;
• Criminal procedural legislation;
• Anti-corruption and sector-specific legislation; and
• The Constitution of Ukraine, the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.
The assignment shall include the following tasks:
• Review all 4,154 existing test questions against the legislation and judicial practice in force as of the cut-off date agreed with the Selection Commission.
• Classify every existing question as: (i) valid without changes; (ii) requiring revision; or (iii) unsuitable for continued use and recommended for removal or replacement.
• For questions requiring revision, update the wording of the question, answer options, correct answer, explanation where required, and references to the applicable legal provisions or case law.
• Identify questions affected by repealed or amended legal provisions; duplicated or substantially overlapping questions; ambiguous wording; outdated terminology; more than one potentially correct answer; no correct answer; or other substantive or methodological defects.
• Check consistency of language, terminology, structure, formatting and level of difficulty across the database and across all four thematic blocks.
• Develop 200 new, original legal knowledge test questions, including answer options, the correct answer and precise legal references. Their distribution among the thematic blocks shall be agreed at the inception stage based on identified coverage gaps and the Commission’s priorities.
• Conduct cross check peer review of every revised and newly developed question.
• Resolve substantive discrepancies between experts under the supervision of the Team Lead and document the final decision in the review matrix.
• Prepare a consolidated, quality-assured database in the Excell format agreed with the Selection Commission, suitable for secure technical upload and use in the competition.
• Participate in online coordination meetings and promptly address reasonable comments received during the acceptance of deliverables.
• Ensure full confidentiality and non-disclosure of test data base to third parties
Team composition and organisation
The service provider shall propose a team of no fewer than five and no more than ten experts. The team shall include:
• one Team Lead/Senior Legal Expert responsible for overall coordination, uniform review standards, quality assurance, communication and consolidated delivery; and
• legal experts whose combined expertise fully covers each of the four thematic blocks listed in Section 3.
The Team Lead may also act as a subject-matter expert. The proposed allocation of experts must allow both primary review and peer review, avoid conflicts of interest and ensure realistic completion within the maximum timeframe.
Confidentiality, integrity and data protection
The legal knowledge test database is confidential and security sensitive. The selected service provider:
• Access to the database shall be limited to authorised experts and used solely for this assignment.
• Test materials may not be copied, disclosed, published, transmitted or stored in unapproved systems, cloud services or personal repositories.
• The service provider shall apply secure access controls, maintain an access list and immediately report any actual or suspected loss, disclosure or compromise.
• At the end of the assignment, all working copies shall be securely deleted or returned, as instructed, and the service provider shall provide written confirmation of deletion.
• Experts must be independent and must disclose any actual, potential or perceived conflict of interest, including any circumstances that could affect the integrity of the competition.
The EUACI and/or the Selection Commission may request the replacement of an expert where a conflict of interest, confidentiality risk, insufficient performance or other material concern is identified.
Deliverables
1 Complete review matrix for all 4,154 questions. A question-by-question record containing, at minimum, the unique identifier, thematic block, review status, required action, updated legal reference, reviewer and peer reviewer, and concise comments explaining material revisions or removal.
2. Revised database of existing questions. A clean and quality-assured version of the existing database incorporating all accepted amendments and clearly identifying questions recommended for removal or replacement.
3. Database of 200 new questions. Two hundred original questions, distributed among the thematic blocks as agreed, with answer options, one clearly identified correct answer.
4. Consolidated final test database. A technically consistent and securely delivered consolidated database combining all approved existing and new questions in the agreed format, ready for upload and use.
5. Final report. A concise summary of the work completed, key legal and methodological issues identified, statistics by thematic block.
All test questions, review matrices and database deliverables shall be prepared in Ukrainian. The final report and working correspondence shall be provided in English unless otherwise agreed. Deliverables shall be submitted electronically to the Selection Commission and final report to the EUACI.
The service provider shall correct substantiated errors or inconsistencies identified during deliverable acceptance without additional cost and within the period agreed with the EUACI.
Required qualifications and experience
The service provider may be a legal entity, consortium or organised group of experts represented by a lead contractor that assumes full contractual responsibility for the assignment.
Minimum team requirements:
• a proposed team of 5–10 experts, including a designated Team Lead;
• a minimum master’s and PhD degree in law for every expert;
• at least five years of relevant professional legal experience for each expert;
• at least seven years of relevant professional experience for the Team Lead, including experience coordinating legal experts, legal analysis or drafting;
• demonstrated team expertise covering all four thematic blocks, including current criminal and criminal procedural law, anti-corruption and prosecution-related legislation, constitutional law, the European Convention on Human Rights and relevant ECtHR case law;
• excellent command of Ukrainian for all experts;
• proven ability to work accurately under a demanding deadline and handle confidential information; and
• independence and absence of actual, potential or perceived conflicts of interest in relation to the competition and its candidates.
The following will be considered an advantage:
• experience developing, validating or reviewing multiple-choice legal test questions or assessment instruments;
• experience supporting competitive selections for prosecutors, judges, senior civil servants or anti-corruption institutions;
• experience applying structured peer review and database-level quality assurance; and
• experience working with international technical assistance programmes or public institutions in Ukraine.
Budget, contract type, timeframe and location
Maximum available budget: EUR 15,000.
Service provider should complete the assignment till 1 October 2026. Bidders shall submit financial proposal in EUR, including a breakdown of expert daily fee and input of days required to complete the assignment.
The maximum duration is 10 calendar days for each expert. The assignment is expected to be performed primarily remotely, using secure communication and data-transfer arrangements approved by the Selection Commission.
Payment will be made against an invoice following acceptance of the contractual deliverables by the EUACI in consultation with the Selection Commission. No payment shall increase the maximum contract value.
Reporting and management
The performance of the Contractor will be judged upon reaching the purpose of this contract as well as obtaining its results, as indicated in the section “Objective” and “Deliverables” herein respectively. Moreover, the performance of the Contractor will be judged upon the successful implementation of all the specific activities indicated in Section “Scope of work” of this document
By signing the contract, the Consultant agrees to hold in trust and confidence any information or documents (“confidential information”) disclosed to the Consultant or discovered by the Consultant or prepared by the Consultant in the course of or as a result of the implementation of the contract, and agrees that it shall be used only for the contract implementation and shall not be disclosed to any third party. The Consultant also agrees not to retain copies of any written information or prototypes in its archive and for its use.
How to apply
The deadline for submitting the proposal is the end of the day on 24 August 2026.
All interested candidates should submit:
- All experts’ CV, not more than 4 pages each
- Financial offer, including daily fee
If these documents are not submitted in line with the request above, the bid will not be considered.
The proposal shall include the aforementioned information and should be submitted within the above deadline to [email protected] cc to [email protected] indicating the subject line: Legal experts for SAPO test database.
You will receive an auto-reply from the [email protected] mailbox when the offer has been received. If you do not receive an auto-reply, your offer was not received and you should contact the EUACI by phone.
Bidding language: English.
Any clarification questions regarding the terms of reference should be addressed to [email protected], not later than 20 August 2026, 17:00 Kyiv time.
Evaluation criteria
| Criteria | Weight | |
| 1 | Relevant experience according to the CV | 70% |
| 2 | Proposed budget according to the financial offer | 30% |