Selection
Qualitative selection assesses whether candidates have the required competence, experience and capacity. This includes the verification of references, accreditations, certificates and the European Single Procurement Document (ESPD).
Applicant loses on urgency — but the State still pays all costs for misleading reference to article 15 of the 17 June 2013 Act
The Council of State rejects an urgent suspension request against a non-selection for a legal-representation contract of the Immigration Office because such contracts fall outside the 17 June 2016 Procurement Act under article 28 and therefore also outside the 17 June 2013 Remedies Act — but orders the State to pay all costs because its notification letter wrongly referred to article 15 of that Act and misled the applicant.
bPost withdraws its non-selection decision just before the hearing — and foots the bill
When Italian company Logistica Paggiola launched an emergency suspension procedure against its non-selection by bPost, bPost withdrew the decision two days before the hearing — rendering the case moot, but leaving bPost to pay all procedural costs.
Cybersecurity firm loses Council of State appeal over one missed deadline — without the case ever being examined on its merits
A non-selected cybersecurity company loses its appeal against VLAIO because it failed to file a reply brief within the statutory 60-day period — the Council of State finds lack of interest without examining the substance of the case.
A registered letter from the Council of State left unclaimed? Six years of litigation for nothing
The Council of State declares the applicant's withdrawal in a six-year-old annulment case against a selection decision by TMVW (Flemish water utility), because the applicant left a registered letter with the negative auditor's report unclaimed at bpost and then failed to file a request to continue proceedings.
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.
Asbestos removal authorisation? You can't 'borrow' it from a subcontractor
The Council of State suspends the award of a demolition contract because the winning bidder lacked the required asbestos removal authorisation, which — classified in the tender documents as a 'suitability to pursue the professional activity' requirement — cannot prima facie be satisfied through reliance on a subcontractor's capacity.
Demanding a 'team member for acoustics' without any selection criterion for acoustics: Getevallei police zone must redo the selection
The Council of State suspends the non-selection of LAVA Architects for the conversion of the police building in Tienen because the police zone excluded it for 'missing team member for acoustics and safety coordination' — while the selection guide imposed no selection criterion for those disciplines and LAVA bid as a single legal entity, not as a consortium.
Suspension of rejection of weed control tender for blank ESPD — excessive formalism in case of material error when completed ESPD had been submitted three days earlier for comparable contract with same municipality
The Council of State suspends the award decision of the Municipality of Riemst which excluded the tender of BV Groenbeheer Baart for weed control 2024-2026 due to submission of a blank ESPD, because the municipality appears to have exceeded the limits of reasonableness by rejecting the tender without further investigation while it had received a fully completed ESPD from the same tenderer three days earlier in the context of a comparable contract with identical selection criteria, and the tenderer had immediately reported the error and pointed to the previously submitted ESPD.
Suspension of non-selection for container transport due to insufficient motivation — decision fails to mention that tenderer had meanwhile obtained and transmitted required approval
The Council of State suspends the decision of Intradel not to select SCES Recol'Terre for lot 4 of a public services contract for container transport and emptying at recycling parks, because the motivation for the non-selection is insufficient: at the time of the decision, Recol'Terre had meanwhile obtained the required approval as transporter of asbestos-cement and transmitted it to Intradel, but the decision makes no mention of this document and gives no reasons why it was not taken into consideration.
Suspension rejected for Sint Martinus Church organ restoration in Aalst: selection criterion requiring master's degree in wood conservation proportionate and relevant
The Council of State rejects the urgent suspension application by Orgelbau Schumacher against its non-selection and the award of the organ restoration of Sint Martinus Church in Aalst to TM Monument Vandekerckhove – Altritempi, finding the selection criterion requiring a master's degree in Wood Conservation/Restoration for the person leading the restoration works to be relevant and proportionate given the subject matter, and Schumacher itself having acknowledged it cannot meet this criterion.
Council of State suspends award of asbestos removal works — SPF Employment approval for asbestos removal cannot replace SPW approval as collector of hazardous waste
The Council of State orders suspension of the University of Mons' decision to award an asbestos removal works contract to RE.DE.CO., because the four highest-ranked tenderers did not hold the approval required by the specifications (SPW approval as collector of hazardous waste), having produced an SPF Employment approval for asbestos removal — a different approval for which no equivalence was announced — and having furthermore ticked 'No' on the ESPD regarding reliance on the capacity of other entities.
Council of State rejects application for suspension under extreme urgency against non-selection in lockable safe framework agreement for Integrated Police — four pleas not serious
The Council of State rejects the application for suspension under extreme urgency brought by SA Sevadepannages against its non-selection in a framework agreement for lockable safes for the Integrated Police (defence and security), finding all four pleas — single candidacy, turnover figures of a competitor, unannounced evaluation method and lack of framework agreement value estimation — not serious.
Annulment appeal rendered moot after withdrawal of SNCB railway station cleaning contract award and selection — costs borne by SNCB
The Council of State finds there is no longer any reason to rule on the annulment appeal by SA ISS Facility Services against the selection of Jette Clean and the award of lots 1 and 3 of the SNCB railway station and service building cleaning contract, as the SNCB withdrew the award decision on 4 June 2021 and renounced the award of those lots — the withdrawal having become definitive in the absence of an annulment appeal.
Suspension request for VRT occupational health service contract rejected: innovation assessment within broadly formulated award criterion not unlawful
The Council of State rejects the suspension application under extreme urgency by VZW Premed against VRT's award of an External Service for Prevention and Protection at Work contract to VZW IDEWE, finding none of the three pleas serious — neither the alleged unlawful inclusion of 'attention to innovation' as an assessment element, nor the claimed substantial irregularity due to a sustainability scan, nor the alleged failure to meet the selection criterion regarding public sector experience.
Loss of a chance compensated at 50%: legal error in rejecting an insurance certificate is not a purely formal defect
The Council of State awards reparatory damages of EUR 28,126.32 to a tenderer excluded from a public works contract, finding that the contracting authority's legal error — rejecting an insurance certificate solely because it was dated after the bid opening — resulted in a 50% loss of a chance of obtaining the contract.
Four paragraphs of motivation that all repeat 'it's a different molecule' is not motivation
The Council of State suspends a €138 million framework agreement for cancer drugs at CHU Liège because the contracting authority rejected TEVA's equivalent offer (lipegfilgrastim instead of pegfilgrastim) without explaining why two molecules that serve the same therapeutic purpose are not equivalent in this case.
Compensating an expired VCA certificate with an ISO certificate you'll only receive two months later? RESA lost the award
The Council of State suspends the Liège grid operator RESA's selection and award of a tree-pruning contract to Bois & Travaux because, on the application deadline (4 August 2021), Bois & Travaux had neither a valid VCA certificate — it had expired seven days earlier — nor the 'equivalent' ISO 45001:2018 certificate, which it would only obtain on 4 October 2021.
Selection criterion '3 references on non-navigable waterways' for an earthworks contract: not disproportionate, even if <1% of the work touches the waterway itself
The Council of State rejects TRBA's challenge against its exclusion from a Walloon contract for the construction of a retention zone on the Senne, and confirms that a selection criterion requiring 'references on non-navigable waterways' is not disproportionate when the contract is executed in such a geographical context — and that bidders must explicitly demonstrate in their offer that their references meet the criterion.
A reference threshold that excludes 6 out of 8 candidates is not automatically disproportionate
The Council of State rejects the action of cleaning incumbent Misanet against its exclusion at the selection stage, because requiring three cleaning references for buildings with intermodal transport hubs of at least 30,000 persons per day is properly linked and proportionate to the subject-matter of the contract — and because a non-selected bidder has no standing to challenge the award itself.
Three references that together cover all disciplines — not enough when the selection guide says 'both … and …'
The Council of State suspends the selection of KRAS Architecten because the municipality of De Pinte 'added up' disciplines from three different reference projects, while the selection guide explicitly required each reference to cover all disciplines on its own.
A young company may bid — but if you select it, you have to explain explicitly why you see no continuity risk
The Council of State suspends the award of Sport Vlaanderen's framework agreement for pop-up skateparks because the contracting authority justified its choice for a company able to submit only one truncated financial year — while the tender required three years — with the perfunctory line 'there is no reason to assume that the continuity of the contract cannot be guaranteed'.
What 'equivalent dimensions' means is in the specifications — not in your head: three projects with two Ku/Ka 6m Cassegrain antennas isn't an example, it's the definition
The Council of State rejects the extreme-urgency action of Spanish company Indra Sistemas against its non-selection for the Defense satellite antenna procurement (Singa IV): when the specifications precisely define what 'projects of equivalent dimension' means, the bidder cannot afterwards rely on a broader reading based on its general sector experience.
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.
A 'pool of staff' is not a valid use of the personnel-experience award criterion — references about the bidder belong in selection, not in award
The Council of State suspends OCMW Tervuren's award to Compass Group for the meal-catering contract at WZC Zoniën because the sub-award criterion 'References' (10/100) measures the bidder's existing contracts — a selection element — and not the experience of the staff that will execute the present contract; Compass's 'pool of staff' argument hollows out the statutory exception.
An 'analogous contract' is not automatically a 'public contract', and calling a bid 'irregular' without examining the substantial nature of the irregularity is not a reasoning — Vivalia sees its award suspended
The Council of State suspends Vivalia's decision to exclude C-Consult Advice from its RHM software contract because Vivalia added two conditions that were not in the tender — references had to come from public (not private) contracts and could not concern a software update — and, on the irregularity ground, did not examine whether the irregularity was substantial, with reasoning resting on undocumented phone calls absent from the administrative file.
A bank statement that the bidder 'has sufficient means' is not a selection criterion — without a threshold, the entire award falls
The Council of State suspends the award to SA Billy of the 'Smart mobility BW' bike-sharing service because the financial-capacity selection criterion is limited to a bank statement without a fixed threshold and there is no second financial criterion — a double breach of article 65 of the Royal Decree on Procurement.
A 'NOK' that becomes 'OK' after follow-up questions is not automatically an unlawful regularisation — if it concerns selection, not the offer itself
The Council of State dismisses Coeman Repatriëring's suspension against the award to Depannage Lybaert of the South-East towing lot, because the additional information the contracting authority requested on staff, premises and intervention vehicles did not fall under the strict regularisation rules for offers, but under the more lenient rules for requesting evidence of technical capacity.
A withdrawn decision makes your action moot — but the contracting authority still pays 1,840 euro in costs
The Council of State declares Haezebrouck's annulment action against its non-selection for three lots of mowing and clearing works to be without object because Westkustpolder withdrew the contested decision in the meantime — but the polder bears the full procedural costs for both the successful suspension and the annulment action, totalling 1,840 euro.
A reference 'does not belong to the candidate' — that line alone is not enough to exclude a firm relying on its founder's past role
The Council of State suspends the City of Tournai's non-selection of architecture firm SEA for the passerelle de l'Arche tender because the motivation — two references (La Belle Liégeoise, l'Enjambée in Namur) are in Greisch's name and therefore do not belong to SEA — does not allow verification whether the City held that founder V.S. cannot rely on those references, or that SEA cannot rely on the professional experience acquired by one of its founders at another firm.
Filing an extreme-urgency suspension works: six days later the Flemish Community withdraws its non-selection decision itself — and pays 920 EUR in costs to the applicant
Ikanbi Group was not selected for the Flemish multi-channel customer contact centre, filed an extreme-urgency suspension on 8 October 2020, and six days later — before the hearing — the Minister-President of the Flemish Government withdrew the non-selection decision: case dismissed as having no object, but the Facilities Agency must bear the applicant's full procedural costs (920 EUR).
An €800,000 framework agreement can be awarded to a class 2 contractor — as long as each call-off stays below the threshold
The Council of State rejects TECNOFLEX's urgent suspension request against the award to HOME PERSPECTIVE of a framework agreement for window replacement at the Port of Brussels (€324,387 ex. VAT, total €800,000 over 4 years): for a framework agreement, the certification class is assessed per call-off, not on the overall budget — even when the contracting authority decides to free up €400,000 for the first year.
Thirteen days between petition and withdrawal — a textbook example that filing an urgent suspension request is sometimes enough
The Council of State holds that LUX GREEN's suit against its non-selection for the redevelopment of rue des Remparts in Virton is moot — the City of Virton withdrew its non-selection decision thirteen days after the petition was filed and now bears the full €920 procedural costs.
A commitment letter from your parent company is NOT a formality — leave it out of your application and you lose the contract, even after four years of proceedings
The Council of State rejects Chantiers Allais's urgent suspension request against its non-selection for the river patrol boats: any candidate relying on the financial capacity of its parent company must include a formal commitment letter from that parent in its application — group affiliation does not suffice, and post-deadline supplements are worthless, even when the contracting authority initially missed the flaw.
Two questionable subcontractors in your file? The contracting authority does not owe you a second chance
The Council of State dismisses Monument Vandekerckhove's appeal against the award of the Ghent gas-holder restoration: article 73, §1, second paragraph of the Royal Decree on Award gives a bidder no unconditional right to replace a non-compliant subcontractor — the contracting authority retains discretion, and the equality principle may oppose replacement.
A reference of 3.2 million euros for a commercial park does not count as a 'watercourse project' when only 299,000 euros were actually performed on the stream
T.R.B.A. submits references of 3.2 million euros (Estaimpuis) and 817,000 euros (Braine-le-Comte) for a selection criterion requiring '2 projects of 600,000 euros on non-navigable watercourses', but the Council of State reads the criterion as 'projects whose main object concerns works on watercourses' – and the Estaimpuis file (a commercial park where only 299,318 euros were actually performed on the Esperlion) does not meet that bar.
Four years of competitive dialogue stopped — and the Council says: one solid reason is enough, here there were two
After four years of competitive dialogue over a GFT processing plant Verko stops the procedure on four grounds — the Council of State holds that the lack of competition (one regular offer left) and the major budget overrun (€31m against an estimate of €13.6m) on their own already support the cancellation, regardless of whether the other two grounds are correct.
'Proof of professional risks insurance' without amount or ceiling is no selection criterion — the Council suspends the award to Misanet and Atalian
The Belgian State had set 'proof of a professional risks insurance' as a financial selection criterion for the cleaning contract for the Immigration Service's closed centres and FITT housings, without any requirement on insured amount, ceiling or excess — the Council of State suspends the award because article 65 of the 2017 Award Royal Decree requires an appropriate level of requirement.
Once you require a bank declaration in the tender, you must enforce it — otherwise your award decision is empty motivation
The Council of State annuls the award to AGS Coussaert of lot 6 (diplomatic packing) of a five-year framework agreement of the Belgian Foreign Ministry: the award decision contained no motivation for accepting an offer without the bank declaration and without the ISPM15 and SEI/HPE certificates expressly required by the specifications, while the report simultaneously denied and confirmed that offer's regularity.
'Number of public clients in 2016' is not an award criterion — that is history
The Council of State suspends the award of a bailiff-services contract by the City of Andenne because three sub-criteria assess the bidder's existing client portfolio — data the bidder cannot influence and that say nothing about this specific contract.
Giving everyone a perfect score is not an evaluation — and a tennis court contract falls under sub-category G4, not G
The Council of State suspends the award of a contract for two clay tennis courts in Herzele to Sportsbuild, because the municipality de facto neutralised two of its three award criteria by giving every bidder the maximum score, and because the contract fell under sub-category G4 — meaning that classification of the contractor was required, which the winner did not have.
H is not H2 — anyone challenging a railway contract's accreditation category must not compare apples with pears
The Council rejects Strukton Rail's extreme-urgency appeal (€12,486,148.88) against the award of a railway contract to Putman Frères (€9,955,008.05) for finishing works at Klein-Eiland station: Strukton accuses Putman of having only category H accreditation instead of H2, but confuses 'overhead lines' (general H accreditation) with 'placing contact wires' (specific subcategory H2) and therefore fails to provide a usable calculation showing H2 was required for the whole contract.
Failing to compare yourself with the winners loses your case
The Council of State rejects an extreme-urgency application by an architect joint venture against Ghent University's selection of five other study teams for a €29.6 million student housing project — not because the reasoning was flawless, but because the petitioners nowhere concretely show why the five selected were not better than they.
A turnover requirement of fifty times the contract value is striking — but if one valid exclusion ground holds, the appeal does not fly
The Council of State rejects VR Conteneur's extreme-urgency action against Intradel: even if the requirement of €10 million annual turnover for a contract worth €200,000 is debatable, the non-selection also rests on the absence of a welding robot — a requirement Intradel was entitled to set — and the awardee ANG could rely on its Polish subsidiary's consolidated turnover under article 74 RD 15/07/2011.
Want one project to count as a reference for every discipline? Say so in your application — not at the Council of State
The Council of State rejects the extreme-urgency action of an architectural firm that only afterwards claimed that its single restoration reference 't Schaliken was actually meant as a reference for architecture, technical studies and stability as well — while the city of Oudenburg had asked for four separate references in the call for applications and the firm's own application maintained that distinction.
Eight references from your Swiss supplier? Without a written commitment, none of them count
The Council of State refuses to select Medtradex because the bidder could not produce three of its own references for a detergent dispensing system, and the references of its Swiss supplier Borer Chemie were unusable without a written commitment under article 74 of the 2011 procurement-placement royal decree.
The lowest bidder loses a €105,982 school renovation because seven mandatory documents were missing — and the specifications offered no second chance
The Council of State dismisses the suspension request against the award of the renovation of the KA Berchem classrooms to Creative Resin Solutions for €105,982.08: the fact that the contracting authority allowed the winner to add a missing reference list but not Verboven-Reynders does not breach the principle of equal treatment — a bidder who omitted seven mandatory selection documents is not in a 'comparable situation' to one who only missed a single formality.
What was first 'insufficient' cannot suddenly become 'satisfactory' without explanation — in the absence of both a minimum threshold and a reasoned assessment, the selection collapses
The Council of State suspends the award of the design/build of a municipal school in Godarville to MIGNONE, because the municipality first found MIGNONE's reference lists insufficient, then without any visible assessment declared after additional information that they were 'satisfactory and sufficient', and in its written observations to the Council brought up — for the first time — five references, three of which had already been in the first list deemed insufficient.
Strict reference requirement in the call? Then 'OK' and 'who can do more can do less' aren't motivation
The Council of State suspends the award to KONE of the lift lot for the new Jules Bordet Institute, because KONE submitted as its technical-capacity reference the renovation of existing lifts at ZNA Middelheim hospital — while the call for tenders explicitly required a 'rigorously comparable' reference in the context of building a new hospital institution, and the administrative file contained no reasoned trace of why that deviation was acceptable.
You challenge your non-selection — but let the award to a competitor pass. What then?
A non-selected candidate for the truck toll system tender litigates against its non-selection but lets the award to Sky-ways stand unchallenged — the Council applies the Amec Spie doctrine and declares the action no longer admissible.
A 'service provider's declaration' is not a logo on your reference sheet — it must be clear, signed and attributable
The Council of State upholds the disqualification of an architects' consortium from Uccle's renovation contract because their reference for a private client was not accompanied by a real 'service provider's declaration' — an undated 'preamble' and a fact sheet bearing only the Archi 2000 logo are insufficient.
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.
A reference for 2,200 parking meters in Seattle does not prove experience with licence plate entry — if the functionality only goes live in 2016
The Council of State rejects IPS Group Benelux' challenge against its exclusion at selection stage for a Gent parking-meter tender and rules that a reference where the required functionality (licence plate entry) is not yet operational does not prove technical experience — even if the bid documents show the equipment supports it.
A lowest price is not 'abnormally low' when it sits 45% above the authority's own estimate
Although the winning bid on a single sub-item was seven times lower than the applicant's, the Council of State refused to suspend the award — because the price still sat 45% above the contracting authority's estimate, and thus did not trigger the statutory duty to seek price justification.
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This page shows all rulings of the Council of State (Belgium's supreme administrative court) on selection 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 →