Did the bids come from the same computer, and is the screenshot used to seek annulment of the tender genuine? In public procurement and contracts, the dispute runs through files and systems, and the examination says what they actually show.
Lei 14.133/2021, the Brazilian public procurement statute, requires tenders to be held preferably in electronic form (art. 17, §2º) and the records to be produced preferably in digital form (art. 12, VI). In practice, the evidence of a fraud, or of a false accusation, lies in files, metadata and system records.
Forensics in public procurement has two fronts. The documentary front examines bids, certificates, declarations and screenshots. The systems front examines what the contract delivers: software, measurement, billing, installed infrastructure. The same examination serves the action for annulment, the administrative improbity action and the discussion of the contract's economic balance.
Adriano Vallim acts as court-appointed expert and as party-appointed expert.
A competitor files a screenshot that supposedly shows a flaw or fraud in the tender. The content of a page can be edited in the browser itself before capture. The examination verifies whether the screen existed as shown and, from the file's metadata, who produced it.
Bids from "competing" companies with the same author, the same computer or the same file template indicate collusion. Metadata fraud in public tenders shows up in those coincidences and in the internal structure of the documents.
Certificates of technical capacity with a disputed signature or an altered file. The examination combines forensic handwriting, on paper, and digital questioned document examination, in the PDF.
When the contracting authority requires the bidder to demonstrate that the bid is feasible (Lei 14.133/2021, art. 59, IV and §2º), the price needs a basis. In software, function point counting measures the size of the system by what it delivers to the user, and not by the hours declared.
Was the software delivered as contracted? Are the figures from the measurement system reliable? Does the billing match what the system recorded? The examination of billing systems reads databases and logs and answers with dated evidence.
When the dispute is about what was installed, the examination goes to the site. The inspection records what exists, how it works and what changed, and brings that into the proceedings with photographs and a technical description.
In proceedings to annul a public tender, the company that came third alleged fraud in the tender and filed digital evidence.
The examination demonstrated that the evidence had been forged: the content displayed in the browser was tampered with before being captured. The metadata of the tampered file indicated who created the material.
The fraud was the accuser's. The attempt to annul the tender failed, and the winning company carried out the services.
A lawsuit involving the public treasury concerned the deployment of new technology in a highway toll system and the changes that had affected the economic balance of the contract.
As court-appointed expert, Adriano Vallim carried out the technical site inspection of every toll plaza, to establish whether the new technology had actually been deployed and whether the changes were necessary.
The expert report brought into the proceedings what was found on site, and not only what the parties' documents said.
A company needed to justify, in a tender, the amount it charged for a software service, which differed from the other bidders' amounts.
The examination performed a function point count of the scope, measuring the functional size of what would be delivered.
The price justification gained a measurable technical basis.
See also
Computer Forensics and Digital Investigation → Digital Questioned Document Examination → Forensic Handwriting and Questioned Document Examination → Software and Development Project Forensics → Digital Authorship and Subscriber Data Disclosure → Judicial and Extrajudicial Expert Work →