Negotiated procedure
The negotiated procedure (with or without prior publication) offers more flexibility than the open or restricted procedure. However, strict rules on equal treatment, transparency and reasoning also apply here.
20 points for 2% of the contract value: how a skewed scoring system and exclusive negotiations sank a €6 million vaccination security contract
The Council of State annuls the award of all nine lots of a security contract for Walloon vaccination centres to Securitas, because the Walloon health agency negotiated exclusively with Securitas and used an absurdly disproportionate scoring system where a €10,000 post carried half the weight of a €6 million post.
Dropping mandatory options after the BAFO without warning — and reversing the ranking
The Council of State suspends the award of a renovation contract because the CPAS dropped mandatory options (triple glazing, ecological materials, single-flux ventilation) after receiving BAFOs without informing tenderers during negotiations, thereby reversing the ranking to the detriment of the applicant.
Eight grounds over 104 pages in an extreme-urgency petition? The Council of State reads that as proof the case isn't serious
The Belgian Council of State rejects Etude Bordet's extreme-urgency suspension against an SWDE water-collections contract awarded to Venturis, noting explicitly that an extreme-urgency petition setting out eight grounds over more than a hundred pages is hardly compatible with the 'apparent illegality' such a suspension requires.
If you bid as part of a consortium, you can't suddenly litigate alone — even if the procurement platform only shows your number
The Council of State declares Victor Cab's urgent suspension request against the award to Blue Cabs inadmissible because the offer for the Brussels disabled-passenger taxi contract worth €59.4 million was filed by the eighteen-company consortium 'GOE Victor Cab' — not by Victor Cab Ltd alone — despite the e-procurement system showing only the latter's company number.
Rejection of extreme urgency suspension against non-award of innovation partnership for PFAS purification Port of Antwerp-Bruges — deviation from indicative flow rates and pilot duration may be assessed as negative point — contracting entity's assessment margin for qualitative criteria respected
The Council of State rejected the extreme urgency suspension claim by BV M. against the Port of Antwerp-Bruges' decision not to award it the innovation partnership for PFAS purification of contaminated dewatering water, as the contracting entity did not exceed its assessment margin by treating a pilot setup with a flow rate 13 times below the lower end of the indicative range and a duration of only one month (instead of three) as a negative point, and the indicative technical specifications did not constitute an unjustified restriction of competition.
Iveco challenges DAF's certification on the defence contract — while Iveco itself regularised three items of its own bid
The Council of State rejects Iveco's annulment action against the award of a defence contract for 879 trucks to DAF Trucks: a EURO III certificate based on UNECE Regulation No. 49 is equivalent to the EC type-approval abolished in 2006, and Iveco has no standing to challenge the regularisation of DAF's bid because it itself was allowed to adjust its own bid during negotiations on essential requirements.
Price justification for NMBS tilting poles passes scrutiny: legal presumption of abnormal prices does not apply in simplified negotiated procedure
The Council of State rejects the suspension request because the legal presumption of abnormal prices under Article 44 §4 of the Royal Decree of 18 June 2017 does not apply to the simplified negotiated procedure, and the NMBS carefully examined and accepted the price justification of the awarded joint venture for multifunctional tilting poles on sound grounds.
Second challenge against NMBS tilting poles rejected: distinction between negotiation and price justification, selective special price investigation permitted
The Council of State also rejects the application of another tenderer against the same NMBS award for tilting poles, clarifying that a price justification is not a negotiation, that the special price investigation may be applied selectively to the first-ranked tenderer, and that repeated inquiry is permitted.
A blanket delegation for all public contracts up to 80 million euros does not fit within "daily management": the Council of State suspends ORES Assets' selection
The Council of State suspends the selection decision of ORES Assets in a 56 million euro framework agreement for aerial work platforms, because a delegation covering all public contracts up to 80 million euros to a director of subsidiary ORES SC exceeds the limits of "daily management", and the energy decrees do not authorise a network operator to delegate powers directly to an organ of its subsidiary.
The winner confirms the 3-week delivery by email — is that verification enough? The Council of State suspends.
The Council of State suspends, in extreme urgency, BPOST's award of a framework agreement for LED beanies to Prosafco because BPOST verified the realism of the 3-week delivery time (an award criterion) merely by asking Prosafco for confirmation — without demanding concrete justification and without addressing that verification in the award motivation.
A line item at €0 doesn't automatically make an offer irregular — the contracting authority must first prove that item is non-negligible
The Council of State suspends the rejection of an offer in which one line item (steel mounting brackets for fire extinguishers) was priced at €0, because La Sambrienne failed to motivate why that item was non-negligible and did not identify which specific requirement from the tender documents was allegedly breached.
A price review done four weeks after the award decision doesn't count — not even when two offers differ by 5.2 million euros
The Council of State suspends a NIRAS award of €13.8M for radioactive concrete dismantling work because the only trace of a price review on the Best and Final Offers was a Tractebel email dated 29 July 2024 — a month after the award decision of 28 June.
If you ask everyone the same question, it's not unequal treatment — even if only one bidder has to adjust
The Council of State rejects Neovision's extreme urgency application against the award to Ecubel of refurbished laptops for Liège provincial schools because the Province could invoke article 76 §5 of the Royal Decree of 18 April 2017 to allow Ecubel to correct its offer — provided it asked all bidders the same clarification question simultaneously, which it did.
BAFO 'for better prices': the authority may skip feedback — your only bid is your only bid
The Council of State confirms that a contracting authority in a competitive procedure with negotiation may perfectly choose to give no feedback on initial offers and to request only a BAFO 'for better prices', even when one bidder scores much higher on quality and the other on price — 'negotiation' is not a second chance to rewrite your offer.
If you contest the irregularity finding instead of fixing it, you can't later claim unequal treatment
The Council of State rejects Sportinfrabouw's appeal: it had the same opportunity to regularise as Lesuco but chose to contest the finding of irregularity instead of adjusting its offer — and therefore cannot invoke discrimination.
Conflict of interest on paper, no damage in practice: why excluding a former employer cuts off the conflict-of-interest ground
The Council of State rejects Umami Catering's UDN challenge against the award of catering lots for Fedasil reception centres, because it fails to show interest in the conflict-of-interest ground: the former employer of the contested official was excluded anyway for wrong VAT rates, and the other official had no access to the bids.
City of Kortrijk may award water treatment DBM contract based on total score
Claim rejected: City of Kortrijk correctly awarded a DBM contract for decentralised water treatment to BelleAqua based on the best total score, where sub-aspects of award criteria do not constitute separately weighted sub-criteria.
52% below the estimate and 35% below the competitor: 'no abnormal price found' is not a justification
The Council of State suspends the award of a grave monument restoration contract because the municipality of Zulte dismissed the strikingly low winning price — 52.5% below the estimate and 34.7% below the second bidder — in the award report with the standard phrase 'no abnormal total or unit prices identified', without the file showing that a genuinely diligent general price review took place.
Framework agreement for cable and catenary works on Antwerp tram network: annulment for conflict of interest – designer Tractebel as sister company of tenderer Fabricom (both Engie subsidiaries) with three of six evaluation committee members
The Council of State annuls VVM De Lijn's award decision for a framework agreement for cable and catenary works on the Antwerp tram network, because De Lijn failed in its active duty to investigate conflicts of interest: the designer Tractebel, which had drafted the specifications and was represented by three of six evaluation committee members, is a sister company of Fabricom — a partner in the winning tenderer tm Antwerpen Boven — as both are (quasi 100%) subsidiaries of Engie with shared directors, which constitutes at minimum an appearance of partiality.
When the law names the decision-maker, you cannot sideline that authority through a public procurement procedure
The Council of State suspends RTBF's award for appointing its statutory auditor because the law explicitly assigns that competence to the French Community government — and a purely formal post-hoc approval cannot replace that government's actual decision.
'Will have to comply with the tender requirements' is not a compliant bid — it's a future promise, and that means substantial irregularity
The Council of State suspends in extreme urgency the Régie des Bâtiments' award of a framework contract for detention-house containers to the ALHO/Hendrickx/C2O consortium because the winning bid said nothing concrete about the mandatory 'water management' minimum requirement — the award decision itself acknowledged that ALHO 'will have to comply with the tender requirements', and the move to recast that requirement as a 'special performance condition' did not persuade.
Wrongly declared irregular? Don't count on 10% — the Council calculates your 'lost chance', and here it landed at 90%
The Council of State awards BV Rezuni 22,695.30 euros in restitution damages (90% of 10% of its offer price) after an earlier annulled award, because the flat-rate 10% rule does not automatically apply and the chance of being awarded the contract is concretely estimated.
In a negotiated procedure you may refuse regularisation — but the file must show you considered it
The Council of State suspends the award of lot 2 of La Louvière's parks-guarding contract because the contracting authority, when finding Seris Security's offer substantially irregular for an 'abnormally low' price, failed to demonstrably weigh whether to allow regularisation under article 76, § 5, of the placement royal decree — a discretionary power that must actually be exercised.
A 'request for clarification' is not a price investigation — only a real suspicion of abnormality triggers the wage / CLA check
The Council of State refuses to suspend the award of the OTW guarding contract for Namur station to Securitas: a request asking the bidder to explain price differences between rate items does not constitute a formal price investigation under article 44 of the special-sectors royal decree — and without that investigation, no obligation to verify wage and collective-bargaining compliance is triggered.
The cheapest and best-quality bid still loses. The culprit: how the price criterion was split
The Council of State dismisses Canon's challenge against the award of the Farys printer fleet framework to Ricoh, despite Canon submitting both the lowest overall price and the highest-quality offer — because Farys split the price criterion into three sub-criteria (devices 50%, management software 10%, additional services 5%) based on a documented market study and needs survey, and the weights stand 'in reasonable relation' to the likely importance of each component.
BAFO by email instead of e-Tendering: prima facie unlawful — but if you take the email yourself, you can no longer claim an interest in challenging it
The Council of State rejects Spikes NV's extreme-urgency action against the award to Skyhaus BV of an IT contract for the pseudonymisation and automatic summarisation of court decisions — three 'clever' attacks (wrong award amount, price evaluation method, BAFO by email) all fail, and the ruling confirms in passing that e-Tendering is also mandatory for BAFOs, even though the contracting authority is saved here by lack of interest.
The €50,000 bar concession fee is a 'deduction', not an add-on: Alice Events' award for Belgium's national day stands
The Council of State rejects Shadow To Live's urgent suspension against the award to Alice Events (€999,953.56 incl. VAT) for the 21 July 2023 national day festivities: the €50,000 bar concession fee prescribed by the specifications must be deducted from the global price, not added to it, so Alice Events remained below the €1,000,000 ceiling.
49% under estimate, no price justification requested — a two-page internal memo suffices
Eqos Energie lost to De Witte-Vandecaveye, who bid 27% below the average and 49% below the estimate — without STIB-MIVB requesting a price justification; the Council held that the internal memo analyzing market fluctuations and historical prices was sufficient, even without a formal challenge.
€21M versus €36M and €40M: a price matching the estimate is not an abnormal price — even when competitors quote double
SNCB awards an 8-year framework agreement for ticket machines to Conduent at €21.4 million while Almex bid €36.2M and Scheidt&Bachmann €39.7M — and the Council refuses suspension under extreme urgency because Almex did not directly attack one essential reason given by SNCB: that Conduent's amount matches the original estimate, and that single reason suffices to remove any appearance of abnormality.
A withdrawn award decision legally no longer exists — so there is no 'change of position' to motivate
The Council of State rejects the suspension of a second Infrabel award decision, ruling that a contracting authority that withdraws its first decision and re-examines the offers does not have to explain why it now reaches a different conclusion — the first decision retroactively disappeared upon withdrawal and cannot serve as a reference point for a 'change of position'.
Deciding not to negotiate in a competitive procedure with negotiation: only if you concretely prove the bids meet your needs
The Council of State suspends the decision of the municipality of Auderghem to discard an architects' team's bid for exceeding a page limit in a competitive procedure with negotiation, because the municipality cannot show anywhere that it actually assessed whether the regular bids met its needs before deciding not to negotiate.
Being invited to bid is not the same as being selected: Jacobs learns the hard way that qualifying for one job won't shield you on the next
The Council of State confirms that ORES rightly excluded Établissements Jacobs from lot 17 of the WQBLAAWA framework — being qualified in the system and invited to tender does not mean you have been selected for the specific contract.
Demoing 'the wrong product' at your clarification session is not an innocent slip — it cost Roba Pharma 22 points and the contract
The Council of State rejects Roba Pharma's request for suspension because the contracting hospital plausibly assessed its offer for two lots of medicine cabinets worth €2.6 million as poor — partly because Roba Pharma spent its clarification session demonstrating a product that wasn't even in the offer.
A selection criterion may require you to have personnel — not to set aside a specific number of people for this contract
The Council of State suspends the award of BEP Environnement's textile collection contract to Oxfam because the selection criterion '4 drivers and 2 supervisors for the management of the contract' is not a general capacity criterion but a requirement on the specific deployment of personnel — which selection criteria are not allowed to be.
Concession or public contract? The difference comes down to one question: who loses money if the market collapses?
The Council of State rejects Clear Channel's extreme-urgency suspension against the award to JCDecaux of the Antwerp concession for 150 city advertising signs (8 years, 85% price / 15% sustainability) because the operational risk lies entirely with the concessionaire — who must invest in the infrastructure, pay an annual retributie even for signs without advertisers, and bear what the Court of Justice calls 'the whims of the market'.
In a negotiated procedure you may let the winner cure a missing electronic signature — provided you motivate it 'in pure opportunity'
ETNIC was allowed to let BONJOUR INC cure its missing qualified electronic signature and then award the Pix promotion campaign — the Council finds the short motivation ('we regularise as a matter of opportunity') sufficient in a negotiated procedure without publication.
The width requirement was 'crucial' for Hilton and a 'target' for Vanderr — with no paper trail, De Lijn has to start over
The Council of State suspends the award of an overhead line maintenance vehicle for the Ghent tram network to Vanderr, because De Lijn first labelled the width requirement (2300 mm) as 'crucial' to Hilton Engineering and then treated it as a 'target' for Vanderr, without any written trace of that change of treatment in the administrative file.
Before filing an extreme-urgency action, do the maths: AGA challenged 3.06 points across six questions while the total gap was 3.24
The Council of State rejects AGA's extreme-urgency action against the award to Modero of an eight-year framework for bailiff services to the city of Antwerp, because its complaints about the page limit, the demo duration and the motivation are either factually wrong or — for the motivation challenge — leave AGA without sufficient interest: the contested points cannot bridge the total score gap.
Lowest tariff, best price — and lost anyway: how four small minus points cost a 10-year bicycle-sharing concession
The Council of State dismisses Marfina's extreme-urgency suspension against the award of the Antwerp bike-sharing concession to Donkey Republic — Marfina won on price and on tariff, but lost 14 points on quality because of an accumulation of details (a coaster brake that did not exist, a maintenance app not available in Dutch, a vague description of a social-employment partner) that each looked minor in isolation.
Replacing the tender's templates with your own is allowed — provided every colour in your legend is defined and every frequency is linked to a specific cleaning task
The Belgian Council of State dismisses the extreme-urgency suspension filed by cleaning company Misanet against the award of the cleaning contract for the Mechelen police complex to Care: Misanet had not filled in the mandatory tables 1-9 for the cleaning regime but had replaced them with its own colour-coded tables, and had failed to define a frequency for the colour white while certain rooms (sanitary facilities, cell complex) required a daily regime — substantial irregularity confirmed.
A 'reservation' about air freight and customs in your masks bid wasn't a useful clarification — it was a deviation from the delivery schedule that cost you the award
The Council of State rejects I'll Be Bag's challenge against the Covid mask procurement of 50 million Community masks (awarded to Avrox and Tweeds & Cottons): tendering with 'reservations' about transport and customs on a strict delivery schedule is legally a deviation — and challenging that deviation only later, in a supplementary note, comes too late and forfeits the right to attack the remaining grounds.
A 'final' email from a Category Buyer can amount to a challengeable exclusion decision — even when the author was not authorised to take it
The Council of State suspends the exclusion of AGC Glass from the SNCB tender for M6 train window frames because the email by which a Category Buyer 'definitively' rejected the bid does constitute a challengeable administrative decision — but was taken by someone who, as SNCB itself admits, lacked the authority, leading the Council to suspend on an ex officio ground.
A price justification rejected in a first procedure cannot be recycled in the next — not even when the price has since been 'adjusted'
The Council of State suspends the award of the urban renewal works in Charleroi (€30.1 million excl. VAT) because the city relied, for a suspiciously high unit price of the winning bid, on a price justification it had itself rejected as unacceptable in an earlier procedure — while the price had since been 'adjusted' without any new inquiry.
A selected candidate who fails to submit a first offer is in principle out of the race — unless the contracting authority fully reopens phase two with a fundamentally amended specification
The Council of State rejects the suspension of the award of the Zorg Leuven central kitchen contract to Compass Group, because the contracting authority did not 'continue' phase two of the negotiated procedure but fully halted and reopened it with a fundamentally amended specification — allowing the other selected candidate (who had not submitted a first offer) to participate again.
The 15% threshold of article 37 applies per lot — not per project. And theatre seats are not 'extra work' to a structural-build contract
The Council of State suspends AGB Deinze's decision to award sub-lot 8 (theatre seats, €219,359.80) — after a failed procurement procedure — 'as extra work' to the structural-build main contractor Strabag, because the 15% margin of article 37 of the Royal Decree on the General Rules of Execution 2013 must be calculated on the originally awarded lot, and supplying theatre seats is moreover a substantial extension of a contract for 'architecture and stability'.
Admitted to negotiations ≠ your bid is compliant
The Council of State dismisses the suspension request of a vendor whose bid for a hospital laboratory information system was declared substantially irregular at the final stage — even though it had earlier been admitted to negotiations without objection.
An intercommunal bidding 30% cheaper is not an abnormally low price — even when working at cost
The Council of State dismisses TV Willer/ABOG's extreme-urgency challenge against the award of twelve street-drain cleaning lots to intercommunal Intradura, ruling that an intermunicipal cooperative may bid outside its members' territory, that 'no commercial character' does not mean 'no public procurement', and that a 30% price difference explained by a lower hourly wage and higher productivity is not an abnormally low price.
If your tender writes 'no negotiation if the winner stands out', then 1.4 points out of 100 is not standing out
AIVE wrote in the tender that it would skip negotiation if the top-ranked offer 'stood out' from the others — then awarded directly to Van Wingen, 1.4 points ahead of Bergerat Monnoyeur, without even explaining why that counted as standing out. The Council of State suspends.
Negotiating below the €30k threshold is allowed, but not with one bidder alone — even if that bidder doesn't change its price
Woluwe-Saint-Pierre asked only the French winner whether it would deliver 36 instead of 24 anti-truck barriers at the same unit price, without asking PITAGONE the same — the Council of State suspends, even though the winner kept its price unchanged.
If you trail by 8.01 points and can recover at most 8, you don't even get a substantive ruling
The Council of State rejects Conceptexpo's suspension request against the award to Potteau for a furniture contract for the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences because, even if all challenged points were corrected in its favour (gaining 5 points itself, removing 3 from Potteau), it would still finish 0.01 points behind the winner — and a plea with no possible impact on the ranking is no plea.
Waiting for the full evaluation report does not stop the suspension clock from running
The Council of State dismisses as out of time an extreme-urgency suspension against the designation of a preferred bidder in a PPP negotiation procedure: the fifteen-day period had already started to run on 27 November 2017, even though the temporary partnership only obtained the complete evaluation report on 16 January 2018.
A site visit for 'contract A' can't double as a site visit for 'contract B' — even if it's the same site
The Council of State suspends the award to Move & Play – MP Solutions of the redevelopment of the Scheutbos playground: the specifications required a site visit 'on pain of nullity', and the certificate the winner attached from an earlier visit for the parallel supplies contract does not satisfy that requirement for the works contract.
'A sound financial basis' is not a level of requirement — not even in a negotiated procedure
The Council of State suspends the award to Köse Cleaning of the cleaning of SNCB management buildings in Brussels because the contract notice fails to specify a level of requirement for several selection criteria — an obligation that applies fully to the negotiated procedure with publication too.
Refusing the government commissioner's visa is no detail — it can flip the entire ranking, and that's allowed
The Council of State rejects the extreme urgency challenge against the award of an orthopedic concession at Ghent University Hospital: after the government commissioner refused his visa on the first award report, the authority could re-evaluate, swapping the winner (V!GO) and runner-up (Aqtor!) — without the commissioner exceeding his powers.
A contracting authority that changes its mind only has to motivate the NEW position — not defend the old one
The Brussels-Capital Region invited Orange into a negotiated procedure without prior publication on the ground of exclusivity, received its BAFO, and then decided to abort the procedure because 'other operators can also handle this' — the Council of State upheld that about-face: a changed position only requires reasoning of the NOW, not an explanation of the THEN.
Withdrawing a tender notice without clear communication costs you €1,500 — even when the Council declares the action 'devoid of purpose'
The Council of State finds that an extreme-urgency action against a launch decision by the municipality of Dilbeek is devoid of purpose because the municipality had already withdrawn the decision ten days before the action — yet it orders Dilbeek to pay €1,500 in costs because that withdrawal had never been clearly communicated to the bidders.
A specification you didn't label 'essential'? That doesn't give you a free pass to ignore it at award time
The Council of State suspended the award of a towing contract because the police zone knew the winning towing service did not comply with the spec requiring premises inside the zone, and never motivated in the award decision why that requirement had suddenly become non-essential.
An uninvited bidder who still submits an offer can win — below the EU threshold a spontaneous bid is fair game
The Council of State refuses to suspend the award of the gym-floor renovation in De Alk because the Municipality of Alken, after severe flooding, could legitimately use the urgent procedure via the college of mayor and aldermen, and because a spontaneous bid from a non-invited company in a negotiated procedure without publication below the EU threshold may be considered.
Two parallel procedures for the same contract? The Council sees through the urgency excuse
The Council of State suspends the award of a directional drilling under the Albert Canal to Van Vulpen because Eandis ran the same contract simultaneously through a mini-competition within its framework agreement and through a parallel negotiated procedure without prior publication with other companies — a setup that fatally undermines the 'imperative urgency' required by article 53, § 2, 1°, c) of the 15 June 2006 Procurement Act.
From 30/30 to 12/30 in the BAFO — when the contracting authority drops a hint and you ignore it
The Council of State refuses to suspend the award of the MIVB Erasmus metro depot (77.98 million euros) to THV CFE-Blaton, ruling that in a negotiated procedure with BAFO it is normal for scores to swing dramatically between the first offer and the final offer — particularly when one bidder responds to a mid-procedure signal from the contracting authority and the other does not.
Two foundation rigs for 664 days — 'planning risk' costs Jan De Nul second place, and the 35-point gap kills the rest of the case
The Council of State refuses to suspend the award to THV CFE-Blaton, ruling that an execution period of 664 days with only 2 foundation rigs could reasonably be flagged as a 'planning risk', and that a 35-point gap with the winner deprives the petitioners of standing on every ground that — even at best — cannot put them in first place.
The decision to launch a tender procedure is not subject to appeal — not even by the incumbent service provider
The International Polar Foundation tries to suspend the Council of Ministers' decision to launch a negotiated procedure for logistical support of the Antarctic BELARE campaigns, but the Council of State dismisses the appeal as inadmissible: a decision to launch a procedure is merely preparatory and produces no definitive legal effects for potential bidders.
Two valid scoring errors in your offer count for nothing if the points gap remains too wide to close
Besix Park persuades the Council of State on two scoring errors — three wrongly deducted points on award criterion 1 and a possibly understated score on criterion 4 — but loses anyway, because even after correction 82.24 points cannot catch Apcoa's 90.
The specification asked for a birthday menu, the bid promised 'a culinary attention': one point less, contract lost
The Council of State rejects Compass Group's suspension request against OCMW Tervuren's award of lot 1 (hot meals) to ISS — at a difference of only 1.10 point between the two offers, small substantive deviations in the bid wording (a 'culinary attention' instead of the birthday menu required by the specifications, a thin treatment of ethnic diversity) fully justify why Compass loses two points on the quality criterion.
'The prices are confidential' is not a valid reason to redact them from an award decision
The Council of State suspends the award to Witteveen+Bos of an ecological restoration contract, because the Flemish Region had redacted both the bid prices and the score per award criterion from the award report it sent — leaving only total scores — and because handing the unredacted version over later does not cure that lack of formal motivation.
Lost your extreme-urgency suspension? Don't forget to request continuation within thirty days — otherwise you have, by law, abandoned your entire action
After the Council of State rejected its extreme-urgency suspension, PRESTA SERVICES did not within 30 days request continuation of the annulment procedure — under article 17, § 7 of the Council of State laws this triggers a legal presumption of desistment and closes the entire action.
Letting a suspended contract run on — and refusing to file an administrative file 'for security reasons'? The Council of State suspends again, without any balance of interests
After the Council of State on 1 February 2016 suspended the award of the WTC III guarding contract to H-SECURITE, the Belgian State simply let the same service provider continue and refused to disclose any administrative file on the 'new' period — result: a second suspension in four weeks, with the applicant's facts accepted as proven and no vague 'safety of asylum seekers' balance to offset it.
An 'amendment' of €270,000 per month to a €4,965-per-month contract isn't an amendment — it's a new contract
The State Secretary for Asylum and Migration signs an 'amendment' to an existing FEDASIL security contract and in reality awards a new contract without publication, without a reasoned award decision, for a different building, at a monthly amount exceeding the entire original contract.
Negotiated procedure 'lighter' than an open one? Not for qualitative selection — that step is mandatory
The Council of State annuls an award by the Ixelles municipality for distributing its town magazine because the tender contained no qualitative selection criteria — an obligation that also applies to the negotiated procedure with publicity.
Challenging a points-table gap in the specifications — when your own bid sits in that gap, you lose standing
The Council of State dismisses an extreme-urgency challenge by Dolmans Landscaping against Eandis's awarding of green-maintenance contracts because the specification gap Dolmans attacked — no points for 'exactly 50%' sheltered-workshop capacity — applied to Dolmans itself on the disputed lot, removing its standing.
A minister signs off on the negotiated procedure, but the full government should have decided — four years later, the award is annulled ex officio
The Council of State annuls ex officio the award to Marsh of the third-party liability insurance for Walloon airports, because the Minister for Airport Policy alone approved the choice of the negotiated procedure while the estimate for this joint procurement exceeded the 290,000 euro threshold for which the full Walloon Government was competent.
Announcing four award criteria and quietly using three — voidable
The Council of State annuls the award to Alineater because the municipality of Aubange had announced four award criteria in its tender documents but completely ignored the fourth (energy references) when comparing bids — and admitted having done so.
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This page shows all rulings of the Council of State (Belgium's supreme administrative court) on negotiated procedure in public procurement. Each ruling is summarized by TenderWolf in plain language, with a legal lesson and a practical question to ask yourself. View all rulings →