Transparency
The transparency principle requires that the procurement procedure is conducted openly and predictably. The rules must be clear in advance and applied consistently. This includes the disclosure of criteria, evaluation methods and decision-making.
A concession bid of 99.8% — and nobody checked whether it was calculated on the same basis as the competitors
The Council of State suspends the award of the parking concession of the city of Ath because the winner calculated its royalty percentage on costs including VAT, while the competitors did so on costs excluding VAT — two incomparable bases for the same award criterion.
An ordinal scale with scores to two decimal places: here 'intermediate values allowed' becomes a smokescreen for undisclosed sub-sub-criteria
Zorgbedrijf Antwerpen scores bids for a Menu Management System on an ordinal 50/55/70/85/100% scale with 'intermediate values allowed', but the evaluation report produces scores to the hundredth — which can only be explained by a hidden split into sub-sub-award criteria that appears nowhere in the specifications.
MDD Pharma was allowed to 'clarify' daily delivery into weekly — Multipharma wasn't allowed to fix its 'forbidden variant'. Two weights, equal treatment thrown out
Ixelles' public welfare centre lets one bidder convert daily delivery into weekly after a 'request for clarification', but denies another bidder the chance to fix a similar irregularity — without explaining why the two situations differ.
A missing safety plan is not a selection issue, and an unattached analysis report cannot retroactively explain the decision
The Council of State suspends a demolition contract of €210,520 because the contracting authority declared a bidder 'not selected' due to a missing safety plan (PPSS) — which is not a selection criterion — and because the analysis report explaining why the offer was considered irregular was not included with the notification.
If two of three bidders had to fix their offers, 'a number of offers had irregularities' is not a motivation
The Council of State suspends the award of lot 6 of De Watergroep's framework agreement for grounds maintenance because the award report only mentioned that 'a number of offers' had been regularised, without specifying which bidders, which issues, and what the outcome was — while in fact two of the three bidders had received regularisation requests.
Explaining your own scoring formula in the response brief is too late — the award is annulled
The Council of State annuls the concession for three LED information boards in Kontich because the municipality only managed to explain what its own screen-time scoring formula meant during the proceedings — and because the 'Tmax = 16' used in the formula did not match the 15-point maximum score stated in the guidelines.
You let the framework agreement pass at the time — you can't later hijack a joining decision to kill the whole agreement
The Council of State recognises that a municipality's decision to join an existing framework agreement of a purchasing body is separately reviewable by a competitor — but dismisses the request because the competitor let the original framework agreement go uncontested, and the principle of legal certainty bars incidental challenge.
De Havilland knew about the award in early January but waited a month too long — UDN claim time-barred
The Council of State rejects De Havilland's suspension request against the 'Green Aircraft' defence contract awarded to the Sabena/Sonaca consortium, because De Havilland had sufficient knowledge of the award decision by 6 January 2026 but only filed on 5 February — too late.
A scoring scale from 'weak' to 'excellent' without further explanation — prima facie transparent enough
The Council of State rejects the suspension request of a postal services company challenging the award of a framework agreement, ruling that a qualitative evaluation method with an ordinal scale (weak/moderate/good/very good/excellent) is sufficiently transparent when the specifications contain evaluation elements and technical provisions that define the framework.
Minister Defensie sloot de Havilland uit van defensieaanbesteding zonder objectieve selectiecriteria
Schorsing omdat de minister de kandidatuur van De Havilland weigerde zonder helder criteria of objectieve gronden, in strijd met gelijkheid.
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.
Negative prices for meal vouchers — 'that's how the sector works' is not sufficient motivation
The Council of State suspends the award of a framework agreement for electronic meal vouchers to Edenred Belgium, because the price investigation motivation was too generic — the contracting authority justified all three tenders globally based on sector characteristics, without individually explaining why the winning tenderer's specific price justification was acceptable.
The specifications require a product presentation 'on pain of nullity' — but the authority simply doesn't organize it
The Council of State annuls the award of an access control contract because the specifications required tenderers to present their proposed equipment 'on pain of nullity of their offer', but the authority never organized this presentation and evaluated offers without this step.
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.
Het toelaten van prijskortingen bij combinaties van percelen is geen wezenlijke bestekwijziging — en een trager vergroeningsritme dan de LEZ-regelgeving mogelijk voorschrijft, maakt een offerte niet automatisch onregelmatig
De Raad van State verwerpt het beroep tot nietigverklaring van de gunning van een opdracht voor de exploitatie en vergroening van geregeld busvervoer (West 1, zestien percelen), omdat (1) het invoeren van een 'combinatiemogelijkheid' voor percelen vanaf de derde bestekversie geen wezenlijke wijziging was maar het louter expliciteren van de bestaande mogelijkheid tot prijskorting bij meerdere percelen op grond van artikel 58 KB speciale sectoren, (2) de offerte van de gekozen inschrijver voor het Gentse perceel niet substantieel onregelmatig was wegens de LEZ-regelgeving — nu de regelgeving uitdrukkelijk in een systeem van individuele toelatingen voorziet voor de periode 2027-2030 en niet vaststaat dat na 2030 geen toelatingen meer mogelijk zijn, (3) de aanbestedende overheid een omstandig prijsonderzoek heeft gevoerd dat het prijsverschil van 36,5% afdoende verklaarde door verschillen in financieringsmodel, infrastructuurkosten en vergroeningsritme, zonder dat een bijzonder onderzoek naar abnormale prijzen vereist was, (4) de vorming van een tijdelijke maatschap door zeven geselecteerde entiteiten uit dezelfde groep rechtsgeldig was en geen mededingingsbeperkende handeling inhield, en (5) het beweerde belangenconflict in hoofde van de CEO van de moedergroep van de gekozen inschrijver — tevens voorzitter van de sectorfederatie — niet verder kwam dan loutere beweringen en veronderstellingen.
Een bestek dat monopolietaken van gerechtsdeurwaarders opneemt in het prijscriterium is fundamenteel onwettig — en een bevraging achteraf kan dat gebrek niet verhelpen
De Raad van State vernietigt de gunning van een opdracht voor debiteurenbeheer via een gerechtsdeurwaarder, omdat het bestek de monopoliebevoegdheden van gerechtsdeurwaarders — waarvoor wettelijk vastgestelde tarieven gelden die niet aan prijsconcurrentie mogen worden onderworpen — opnam in de inventaris die diende als basis voor het gunningscriterium prijs, en de aanbestedende overheid bij de beoordeling van dat criterium vervolgens afweek van het bestek door de inventarisprijzen te vervangen door het resultaat van een informele bevraging over de 'minnelijke fase' — een begrip dat niet in het bestek voorkwam — waardoor de inschrijvers bij het opstellen van hun offerte niet konden voorzien hoe het prijscriterium zou worden beoordeeld.
Onvoldoende motivering bij uitsluiting wegens abnormale prijzen: de beslissing moet duidelijk maken of de prijsverantwoordingen onontvankelijk dan wel ongegrond zijn
De Raad van State vernietigt — via de versnelde procedure na schorsing — de gunningsbeslissing van een overheidsopdracht voor wegenonderhoud, omdat de motivering van de uitsluiting wegens abnormale prijzen dubbelzinnig was: enerzijds bleek niet of de prijsverantwoordingen als onontvankelijk dan wel als ongegrond werden beschouwd, anderzijds stemden de motieven in de gunningsbeslissing niet overeen met die in het analyseverslag, zodat de geweerde inschrijver de werkelijke redenen van zijn uitsluiting niet kon achterhalen — en het argument van vertrouwelijkheid rechtvaardigt weliswaar een beknopte motivering, maar geen buitensporig summiere.
Handtekeningen op verbintenisverklaringen van derden die niet overeenstemmen met de identiteitskaart mogen als onbewijskrachtig worden geweigerd — en de aanbestedende overheid hoeft de inschrijver geen tweede kans te geven
De Raad van State verwerpt de vordering tot schorsing bij uiterst dringende noodzakelijkheid van de niet-selectie van een inschrijver bij een raamovereenkomst voor loodgieterswerken, omdat (1) de aanbestedende overheid de verbintenisverklaringen van twee onderaannemers als onbewijskrachtig mocht weigeren wegens niet-overeenstemmende handtekeningen met hun identiteitskaart — wat geen schending is van de bewijskracht van een onderhandse akte maar een vaststelling dat de verklaringen de beweerde verbintenissen niet aantonen, (2) de formele motivering afdoende was nu zij de concrete reden van de weigering vermeldde, en (3) de zorgvuldigheidsplicht de aanbestedende overheid niet verplichtte om de inschrijver nogmaals te bevragen nadat zij reeds gebruik had gemaakt van de mogelijkheid om aanvullende informatie op te vragen na de opening van de offertes.
Een groot prijsverschil alleen volstaat niet om een bijzonder onderzoek naar abnormale prijzen te verplichten — en vertrouwelijkheid rechtvaardigt dat de details van een prijstoelichting niet in het gunningsverslag staan
De Raad van State verwerpt de vordering tot schorsing bij uiterst dringende noodzakelijkheid van de gunning van een raamovereenkomst voor reisdiensten, omdat (1) de aanbestedende overheid wel degelijk een algemeen prijsonderzoek heeft gevoerd — met een interne prijsvergelijking en een gerichte bevraging van de twee scherpst biedende inschrijvers — en na afdoende toelichting terecht kon concluderen dat geen sprake was van schijnbaar abnormale prijzen, (2) het loutere bestaan van een groot prijsverschil (57%) tussen offertes niet automatisch de verplichting doet ontstaan om over te gaan tot een bijzonder onderzoek naar abnormale prijzen, nu de aanbestedende overheid een ruime beoordelingsvrijheid heeft — zeker bij intellectuele diensten — en het feit dat de gekozen inschrijver als zittende dienstverlener haar scherpere prijzen kon verantwoorden met franchisewijzigingen, omzetstijging en technologische optimalisatie, en (3) de gekozen inschrijver haar offerte niet onrechtmatig had gewijzigd door afzonderlijke tarieven voor online en offline boekingen op te geven, nu het bestek zelf die mogelijkheid voorzag bij de omschrijving van het gunningscriterium 'online boekingssysteem'.
De aanwijzing van een voorkeurbieder in een onderhandelingsprocedure voor treinstellen van 3,3 miljard euro doorstaat de toets — ook al scoort de goedkoopste inschrijver technisch lager en ook al is de beoordelingsmethode pas na opening van de offertes uitgewerkt
De Raad van State verwerpt de vordering tot schorsing bij uiterst dringende noodzakelijkheid van de tweede gunningsbeslissing voor een raamovereenkomst voor de levering van elektrische en batterijelektrische treinstellen (AM30) ter waarde van meer dan 3,3 miljard euro, omdat (1) de aanbestedende overheid na een eerdere succesvolle schorsing de motivering van het technisch criterium afdoende heeft verbeterd, (2) de beoordelingsmethode — een plus/min-waardensysteem voor het technisch criterium — niet vooraf in de opdrachtdocumenten hoefde te worden aangekondigd, mits zij coherent is en de gunningscriteria niet denatureert (toepassing TNS Dimarso), (3) de keuze om na vier onderhandelingsrondes over te gaan tot aanwijzing van een voorkeurbieder in plaats van een vijfde onderhandelingsronde niet kennelijk onredelijk is, (4) de beweerde specifieke beoordelingsfouten bij de technische, contractuele en energiecriteria het puntenverschil niet overbruggen, en (5) het argument dat de aanbestedende overheid de uitsluitingsgronden had moeten onderzoeken wegens de activiteiten van de gekozen inschrijver in bezet Palestijns gebied prematuur is, nu de bestreden beslissing slechts een voorkeurbieder aanwijst en geen definitieve gunning inhoudt.
Een inschrijver die zelf 'niet conform' invult voor een essentiële eis, kan achteraf niet beweren dat hij wél kon voldoen — en een bestek dat aansluit bij eerdere voertuigen is niet automatisch op maat van de zittende inschrijver geschreven
De Raad van State verwerpt het beroep tot nietigverklaring van de gunning van een raamovereenkomst voor de levering van multifunctionele brandweerautopompen 4x4, omdat (1) de verzoekende partij zelf in haar offerte uitdrukkelijk 'NEEN' had ingevuld bij de conformiteitsvereiste van drie scharnierpunten voor opstaptreden — met de opmerking 'dit is een zinloze eis om bepaalde firma's te bevoordelen' — en de aanbestedende overheid haar offerte terecht als substantieel onregelmatig heeft verklaard, (2) de verzoekende partij er niet in slaagt aan te tonen dat het bestek op maat van de zittende inschrijver is geschreven, nu zij zelf voor het merendeel van de technische vereisten 'conform' had kunnen aanbieden en de driescharniereneis voortkwam uit concrete operationele ervaringen van de brandweer, (3) de looptijd van zes jaar voor de raamovereenkomst afdoende was gemotiveerd in de toelichtingsnota aan de Inspectie van Financiën — met verwijzing naar de hoge investeringskosten voor prototypebouw en de productietermijn van anderhalf tot twee jaar — en die motivering niet in het bestek zelf hoefde te staan, en (4) het middel inzake machtsafwending faalt bij gebrek aan ernstige en met elkaar overeenstemmende aanwijzingen.
Zusterarrest autopompen 4x2: bewust niet-conform inschrijven bij essentiële eis leidt onvermijdelijk tot substantiële onregelmatigheid
In dit zusterarrest van arrest 264.262 — met dezelfde partijen, dezelfde opdracht maar voor perceel 1 (autopompen 4x2) — verwerpt de Raad van State het beroep tot nietigverklaring op identieke gronden: de inschrijver die zelf uitdrukkelijk 'niet conform' invulde bij de essentiële eis van drie scharnierpunten voor opstaptreden, met de opmerking dat dit 'een zinloze eis is om bepaalde firma's te bevoordelen', kan achteraf niet beweren dat zij wél had kunnen voldoen, en het bestek is niet op maat van de zittende inschrijver geschreven nu de betwiste eis voortkwam uit concrete operationele ervaringen van de brandweer.
De beoordelingsmethode voor gunningscriteria hoeft niet vooraf te worden bekendgemaakt — en een beschrijvende beoordelingsschaal met vijf niveaus is niet onregelmatig
De Raad van State verwerpt de vordering tot schorsing van de gunning van een overheidsopdracht voor werken (renovatie industrieel gebouw en aanleg bedrijvenpark), omdat (1) de beoordelingsmethode — een beschrijvende vijfpuntenschaal — niet vooraf in de opdrachtdocumenten hoefde te worden aangekondigd, mits zij coherent is, de gunningscriteria niet denatureert en geen discriminerend effect heeft (bevestiging van het TNS Dimarso-arrest), (2) de aanbestedende overheid de planningen van de inschrijvers mocht corrigeren om de vergelijkbaarheid te waarborgen door de startdatum te verschuiven naar het moment waarop daadwerkelijk op de werf wordt gewerkt, (3) het aspect 'organisatie' — waaronder het beheer van hinder in een stedelijke omgeving — duidelijk in het bestek was aangekondigd als beoordelingselement, en de inschrijver dit in haar offerte niet had behandeld, en (4) de aanbestedende overheid niet verplicht was om de inschrijver te vragen haar offerte op dit punt aan te vullen — dat zou een substantiële verbetering zijn geweest die het gelijkheidsbeginsel zou schenden.
Bij een globale beoordeling van technische waarde mag de aanbestedende overheid de vastgestelde meer- en minwaarden cijfermatig vertalen naar een score — en na vier offerterondes mag zij een voorkeursbieder aanwijzen zonder verder te onderhandelen
De Raad van State verwerpt de vordering tot schorsing van de aanwijzing van CAF als voorkeursbieder voor de NMBS-raamovereenkomst voor nieuwe treinstellen (AM30), omdat (1) de beoordelingsmethode voor het criterium 'Technische waarde' — een beginscore van 18/36 met bijstelling van 0,1 punt per vastgestelde meer- of minwaarde — zich inpaste in de vooraf aangekondigde globale beoordeling en geen nieuw systeem was maar een nadere invulling na het eerdere schorsingsarrest, (2) de beoordelingselementen niet als subgunningscriteria waren gehanteerd omdat zij niet elk afzonderlijk waren gewogen, (3) de NMBS na vier offerterondes over twee jaar mocht beslissen een voorkeursbieder aan te wijzen in plaats van verder te onderhandelen, nu zij aannemelijk maakte dat verdere rondes ernstige negatieve gevolgen zouden hebben (70-100 miljoen euro OPEX-kosten, vertraging tot na 2030) terwijl het onzeker was of de offertes nog konden verbeteren, en (4) een nieuw middel dat pas op de dag van de terechtzitting schriftelijk werd ingediend, niet-ontvankelijk was wegens schending van de loyale procesvoering — ook al werd het aangebracht als middel van openbare orde.
Een beschrijvende evaluatie met globale quotering is een voorzienbare beoordelingsmethodiek voor kwalitatieve gunningscriteria — en wie zijn plan van aanpak baseert op een loutere overname van de standaardleidraad, kan niet verwachten dat de aanbestedende overheid daarin een meerwaarde leest
De Raad van State verwerpt het vernietigingsberoep tegen de gunning van een dienstenopdracht voor explosievenopsporing, omdat (1) het gebruik van een logaritmische prijsformule in plaats van de drieregel geen onwettigheid oplevert zolang een lagere prijs tot een hogere score leidt, (2) een beschrijvende evaluatie van kwalitatieve gunningscriteria met globale quotering een voorzienbare beoordelingsmethodiek is die niet vooraf aan de inschrijvers moet worden bekendgemaakt, en (3) de inschrijver die voor zijn plan van aanpak grotendeels de standaardleidraad overneemt — terwijl het bestek uitdrukkelijk vereist dat de inschrijver die leidraad overstijgt — niet aantoont dat de lage score op onjuiste feiten berust door louter de inhoud van zijn eigen offerte te herhalen.
De correlatie tussen de aangeboden prijs en de diepgang van het plan van aanpak mag worden betrokken bij de kwalitatieve beoordeling — en het niet-abnormaal bevinden van de prijs staat daar niet aan in de weg
De Raad van State verwerpt de vordering tot schorsing van de gunning van een studieopdracht voor walstroom in een zeehaven, omdat (1) de aanbestedende overheid uit de correlatie tussen de lage prijs en het voorgestelde plan van aanpak mocht afleiden dat de studie met onvoldoende diepgang zou worden aangepakt — zonder daarmee de autonomie van de gunningscriteria te schenden — en (2) de vaststelling dat de prijs niet abnormaal is, niet tegenstrijdig is met de vaststelling dat het plan van aanpak onvoldoende diepgang vertoont: de prijs was normaal voor de voorgestelde aanpak, maar de aanpak zelf was ontoereikend.
Een aanbestedende overheid kan niet op grond van artikel 85 van de Overheidsopdrachtenwet afzien van een opdracht die reeds in uitvoeringsfase is getreden — ook niet als de formele kennisgeving ontbreekt
De Raad van State schorst de beslissing van een gemeente om de gunning van een raamovereenkomst voor periodieke controles in te trekken en af te zien van de opdracht, omdat de opdracht op het ogenblik van die beslissing reeds in een fase van uitvoering was getreden — er was een startbevel gegeven, er waren meer dan tachtig controles uitgevoerd — en artikel 85 van de Overheidsopdrachtenwet enkel kan worden ingeroepen tijdens de plaatsingsfase, niet nadat de uitvoering is begonnen.
Wanneer het bestek een ISO-norm voorschrijft als meetmethode en alle metingen consequent boven de maximaal toegelaten grens uitkomen, is de onregelmatigverklaring van de offerte niet onwettig — ook al komen eigen metingen van de inschrijver tot een ander resultaat
De Raad van State verwerpt de vordering tot schorsing van de onregelmatigverklaring van een offerte voor interventiebroeken, omdat het bestek uitdrukkelijk ISO 3801 als meetmethode voorschreef, alle laboratoriummetingen consequent een gewicht boven de maximaal toegelaten grens van 255 g/m² opleverden, en de inschrijver niet aannemelijk maakt dat het verschil tussen de eerste en tweede meting of haar eigen afwijkende metingen de wettigheid van de vaststelling aantasten.
Een kwalitatieve beoordeling waarbij dezelfde elementen uit een offerte bij meerdere gunningscriteria als min- of pluspunt worden meegenomen is niet onwettig, zolang de beoordeling telkens vanuit een ander kader en een andere invalshoek gebeurt
De Raad van State verwerpt de vordering tot schorsing van de gunning van een raamovereenkomst voor visuele en verbale branding van de Stad Brugge, omdat de verzoeker niet aannemelijk maakt dat het ontbreken van een vooraf bekendgemaakte beoordelingsmethodiek onwettig is wanneer de evaluatie op een voor de hand liggende manier besloten lag in de omschrijving van de gunningscriteria, en omdat het meenemen van dezelfde offerteaspecten bij meerdere gunningscriteria geen verboden dubbele beoordeling uitmaakt wanneer de beoordeling telkens vanuit een andere invalshoek gebeurt.
Wie een prijsformule in het bestek opneemt die niet werkt bij een nulprijs, kan die formule niet omzeilen door beide offertes het maximum te geven — en de onmogelijkheid om de formule toe te passen ontslaat de overheid niet van haar wettelijke verplichtingen
De Raad van State schorst de gunning van een raamovereenkomst voor maaltijdcheques en geschenkcheques voor het personeel van Actiris, omdat de aanbestedende overheid de prijsformule uit het bestek niet kon toepassen wegens een nulprijs in een van de offertes en vervolgens aan beide offertes het maximum van 35 punten toekende — waardoor twee offertes met een verschillende prijs gelijk werden behandeld en het prijscriterium werd uitgehold, in strijd met het gelijkheidsbeginsel en het transparantiebeginsel.
Tender notices, specifications, award decisions and signed contracts are not 'business secrets' — STIB cannot shield its camera procurement since 2000 from the Ligue des droits humains
The Council of State rejects the Brussels public transport operator STIB's suspension request against a CADA decision ordering disclosure of its camera procurement files since 2000 to the Ligue des droits humains, because urgency is lacking now that CADA no longer holds the documents.
Beoordelingsmethode NMBS-treincontract geschorst: verband tussen kwalitatieve labels en punten is onbegrijpelijk
De Raad van State schorst de aanwijzing van CAF als preferentiële inschrijver voor het AM30-raamakkoord van de NMBS (tot 4,66 miljard euro voor elektrische treinstellen), omdat de beoordelingsmethode voor het criterium 'technische waarde' niet toeliet te begrijpen hoe de generieke kwalitatieve labels en de vastgestelde meer- en minwaarden zich vertaalden in de toegekende puntenscores.
Een selectiecriterium zonder minimumdrempel is geen selectiecriterium — ook niet als de drempel 'nul' is
De Raad van State vernietigt de gunning van een takeldienst omdat geen enkel selectiecriterium in het bestek een minimaal vereist niveau bevatte — en een drempel van 'nul' niet geldt als een 'gepast eisenniveau' in de zin van artikel 65 van het plaatsingsbesluit.
Het gunningsverslag pas na de gunningsbeslissing meedelen is een motiveringsgebrek
De Raad van State schorst een gunningsbeslissing omdat de aanbestedende overheid het gunningsverslag — waarop de motivering volledig steunde — niet gelijktijdig met de beslissing heeft meegedeeld aan de niet-gekozen inschrijvers.
Even without a bid, you can still demand the paperwork: intermunicipal associations must disclose everything, not only their 'public task'
The Council of State annuls the Flemish FOI appeals body's inadmissibility ruling against Proximus's transparency request on the Fluvius-Telenet NetCo deal, because intermunicipal associations qualify as 'local authorities' under the Governance Decree and are therefore required to disclose all their administrative documents — not only those relating to a 'public task'.
Een gunningscriterium dat inschrijvers dwingt tot gissen, schendt het gelijkheidsbeginsel — ook buiten de wet overheidsopdrachten
De Raad van State vernietigt de gunning van een opdracht voor gerechtsdeurwaardersdiensten omdat het enige gunningscriterium — de signeringstermijn — onvoldoende informatie gaf over het aantal gelijktijdig te behandelen dwangbevelen, waardoor inschrijvers hun offerte op vermoedens moesten baseren.
Punten aftrekken voor informatie die het bestek niet vroeg, is een onangekondigd subcriterium
De Raad van State vernietigt de gunning van HVAC-werken aan een zwembad omdat de aanbestedende overheid vijf punten aftrok voor het ontbreken van veiligheidsinformatie in de methodologische nota, terwijl het bestek die informatie nergens als vereiste vermeldde.
Stel je beoordelingsmethode vast vóór de opening van de offertes — en pas ze correct toe
De Raad van State schorst een gunningsbeslissing voor meet- en detectietoestellen omdat de beoordelingsmethode voor het criterium 'functionele waarde' niet vooraf was vastgesteld en bovendien rekenkundig inconsistent was toegepast, waardoor de inschrijver de puntentoekenning niet kon controleren.
Als de vereiste erkenning niet in het bestek staat, kun je een inschrijver niet weren omdat hij ze niet heeft
De Raad van State schorst een gunningsbeslissing omdat de opdrachtgever een inschrijver uitsloot wegens het ontbreken van een erkenning in categorie D, terwijl die vereiste niet was opgenomen in de opdrachtdocumenten die de inschrijvers konden raadplegen op e-Procurement.
Een fout in een Excel-formule is niet automatisch een 'rekenkundige vergissing'
De Raad van State schorst een gunning omdat de opdrachtgever fouten in Excel-formules van de winnaar corrigeerde als 'rekenkundige vergissingen', terwijl niet vaststond dat het om loutere telfouten ging en niet om fouten die de offerte onregelmatig maakten.
Als de regularisatie de kern is, mag je de stukken erover niet geheimhouden
De Raad van State heft de vertrouwelijkheid op van documenten over de regularisatie van een ontbrekende elektronische handtekening, omdat de verliezende inschrijver zonder inzage in die stukken niet zinvol kan controleren of de regularisatie correct is verlopen.
If you want to attack the hardware supplier as competitor for the software running on it, do it in the initial petition — not in the supplementary brief
The Council of State rejects Vigo Universal's annulment action against the award to Timescope for developing a VR application that had to run on 'Timescope Mini' terminals supplied by Timescope: Vigo's strongest arguments — that the award criterion contained an unannounced visual sub-criterion, and that Timescope's competitive advantage from an earlier contract should have been neutralised — only surfaced in the supplementary brief and are therefore late.
If your e-procurement platform shows a different deadline from your email, you cannot brand bids as late
The Council of State suspends the award: Nautisport had announced by email that bids had to arrive by 2 July 2024, but the e-procurement platform itself — where bids had to be submitted — showed 18 July 2024; when Arcadus-Arcadis submitted on 18 July, their bid was rejected as late without any analysis of whose legitimate expectation had been created.
Sub-criteria that only surface at evaluation? That is allowed — but only under strict EU conditions, and the challenger must prove the breach concretely
The Council of State rejects cleaning company ACTIVA's appeal against the award of five lots of cleaning for military quarters to ISS and Cleaning Masters: the delegation of power to the colonel was legitimate, the use of sub-criteria not pre-weighted complied with EU case law, and ACTIVA showed no concrete assessment error.
Staying silent after a suspension cost COCOF the contract: the authority failed to request continuation and the suspended award was annulled without further debate
Because COCOF did not request continuation within thirty days of the suspension ruling, the Council of State automatically annuls the award to TPF Utilities via the short procedure — the unclear tender document clauses on clearing existing non-conformities now count definitively against the contracting authority.
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.
The bond clause in the specifications leaks the estimate — complaining you didn't know is pointless
The Council of State rejects the appeal: a fee percentage is a valid price quotation, and claiming that the estimated contract value was not disclosed while proving in the same pleading that it can be derived from the bond clause undermines your own case.
"We want to review the arrangements" is not a valid reason to abandon an award
The Council of State suspends the Walloon Region's decision to withdraw five pellet-stove lots of a MEBAR contract and relaunch the procedure, because the reasoning — a single sentence referring to an earlier suspension ruling and to "reviewing the award arrangements" — does not allow verification that the real motives are pertinent and admissible.
"Correcting" a price into a different unit than the specification prescribes is not a calculation error — it is rewriting the specification
The Council of State suspends the award to HR Groep Streetcare because the City of Antwerp recalculated the prices for the "truss frames for traffic signs" items into a price per square metre, while the specification and Standard Specification 250 expressly required a price per metre — a different unit than the one the competitor Trafiroad had used.
Listing technical differences and then giving everyone 24 out of 30: that is how you neutralise your own quality criterion
The Belgian Council of State annuls the award of an artificial-turf pitch contract because the contracting authority listed clear technical differences between the three bids in its award report, but then gave all three an identical 24/30 for 'quality' — and only a 0.5-point difference for 'guarantees' despite warranty differences of up to ten years.
ICT management Sint-Truiden: annulment – assessment methodology with sub-criteria and own scoring scale not established in advance, and rule of three incorrectly applied distorting the ratio between award criteria
The Council of State annuls the award decision of the city of Sint-Truiden for ICT infrastructure management, user support and equipment supply, because the contracting authority used an assessment methodology with sub-criteria and a separate 10-point scoring per element that was not established in advance nor announced in the specifications, and because it applied the rule of three to rescale the highest-scoring tender to 100%, thereby distorting the ratio between the award criteria.
Zandvliet waiting dock: rejection of annulment appeal – negative unit prices for soil disposal in Rotterdam insufficiently justified, contracting authority's assessment margin not exceeded
The Council of State rejects the annulment appeal by the temporary association HYE–Boskalis against the award by De Vlaamse Waterweg for the construction of a waiting dock at Zandvliet, because the negative unit prices for soil disposal in Rotterdam (-€4/m³ and -€5/m³ for items 2 and 3 of conditional part 1) were insufficiently justified — the adjustment of a reference price for Maas sand of €6.50/m³ down to €4 and €5/m³ due to 'lesser quality' lacked further specification or argumentation, and the contracting authority did not exceed its assessment margin.
Defence corrected an Excel error in the winning bid without saying which one — and that single silent asterisk costs the award
The Council of State annuls Defence's award of a framework agreement for maintenance at the Florennes military zone because the award decision states that the winner's T-figure was 'rectified' from 107.36 to 91.34, but nowhere explains which error was actually corrected — and post-hoc explanations by email cannot heal that defect.
An award criterion that only measures what you did last year does not measure what you are offering today
The Council of State suspends a mattress recycling award because the quality criterion 'recycling percentage' (60 of 100 points) leaned entirely on a Valumat certificate of 2022 performance — and therefore not on the offer itself, ignored later developments, and used a calculation method that disregards stocks.
You can challenge a tender specification, but not four weeks after publication — the clock starts on the contract notice, not on the Q&A forum
The Council of State dismisses Postalia's suspension challenge against the postal-services tender specifications of the Liège water utility CILE: the fifteen-day deadline starts running on the day the contract notice is published (21 February 2024), not on the day the contracting authority posts replies to the Q&A forum, and certainly not when the bidder itself 'becomes convinced' of an irregularity.
The 15-day deadline runs from when you became aware of the specifications, not from the answer to your question on the forum
The Council of State declares Postalia's appeal against the specifications of the Centre Hospitalier de la Haute Senne inadmissible because it was filed on 25 March 2024 — more than 15 days after Postalia became aware of the specifications (at the latest on 1 March, the day it itself asked questions about those specifications on the e-Procurement forum).
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.
Replacing a dietitian with a food safety auditor and quietly adding a second pupil: annulment plus EUR 3,461.50 in damages
The Council of State annuls the school meals contract awarded by Sint-Martens-Latem to Compass Group because the test panel that performed the organoleptic test had a different composition than announced in the specifications — no dietitian, two pupils instead of one — and grants Delimeal EUR 3,461.50 in damages (50 % of 10 % of its offer price of EUR 69,230 excl. VAT, one school year).
'Personal data' is no excuse for keeping internal advice from an unsuccessful bidder
The Council of State lifts confidentiality on the email exchange between the Chancellery and the Inspectorate of Finance in a procurement dispute over the 21 July national-day celebrations, because the contracting authority fails to identify any actual business secret — only personal data may be redacted.
Household waste management in Etalle: suspension – the 'social considerations' criterion requiring a 'note demonstrating the social character of the company' is too vague and confers unlimited freedom of choice
The Council of State orders the suspension of the commune of Etalle's decision to award the 2024-2025 household waste management contract to DURECO, because the second award criterion 'Social considerations' (20 points), described only as 'a note of maximum one A4 page demonstrating the social character of the company', lacks the clarity and precision required by article 81 of the Law of 17 June 2016 and confers an unconditional freedom of choice on the contracting authority.
Suspension of COCOF maintenance contract award: specifications insufficiently clear on inclusion of existing non-conformities in lump-sum price
The Council of State suspends the award of a contract for maintenance, periodic inspection and repair of HVAC installations of the COCOF to TPF Utilities, because the specifications — read together with the contradictory answers provided by the contracting authority during the procurement procedure — insufficiently defined whether the remediation of existing observations and non-conformities had to be included in the lump-sum price, thereby violating the transparency principle.
A 'shelf life in months' isn't arithmetic — production and delivery may share the same calendar month
The Council of State refuses to suspend the award of 5 million surgical face masks to YNK Group, because the winning bidder credibly explained that its 60-month shelf life from delivery holds when production and delivery fall within the same month — even though Protect and Care chose to deduct production and transport time from its own offer.
Bike lease suspended: three assessment errors on quality criterion bridge the points gap
The Council of State suspends the award of a framework agreement for operational bike leasing because the contracting authority made three errors in assessing the quality criterion — an unreasonable minus for mandatory maintenance, an unmotivated plus for social employment, and a non-comparative plus for a discount voucher — which together bridge the 2.5-point gap.
Loss of a chance quantified lot by lot: EUR 147,264 for three bailiff firms excluded from an information meeting
The Council of State awards reparatory damages of EUR 147,264.38 to three bailiff firms excluded from a service contract for tax recovery by the Walloon Region, quantifying their loss of chance lot by lot — from 50% to 75% depending on the number of tenderers per lot — and applying a 10% profit margin on unrealised turnover.
Two different references, two identical scores: that needs an explanation
The Council of State suspends the award because Idelux gave the same 5/5 score to a 134-seat reference and a 156-seat reference without any explanation — and because a different score on that single sub-sub-criterion was just enough to flip the ranking.
Mentioning 'our trusted partner' in your method statement = implicitly relying on third-party capacity — UEA or no UEA
T&D Security loses the City of Ghent parking surveillance tender because their method statement names a licensed alarm centre (nv P.G.) as a partner without filing a UEA and capacity-commitment letter for that partner — result: substantial irregularity and mandatory annulment of the offer.
Communicating only points for the price criterion is motivation theatre: without the percentages, nobody can verify your 'rule of three' was correctly applied
The Council of State annuls via the expedited procedure (art. 17 §6 coordinated laws) the STIB decision of 3 May 2023 awarding a tax consultancy contract to Forecast Consulting, because the reasoned decision merely listed points per bidder for the price criterion without showing the proposed percentages or the application of the price formula.
Winning a suspension isn't enough: if you don't bid in the replacement tender, you lose your standing — and you pay the costs
Five years after the Council of State suspended the award of the 'Silver Tower' lease to Ghelamco, the Council declares Fedimmo's annulment action inadmissible because Fedimmo (WTC IV) did not participate in the new procurement procedure launched by the Brussels Region in 2019, nor did it challenge the new specifications or the new award.
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.
Even when your contract falls outside the procurement law: awarding 64 out of 100 points on publicly available financial ratios is discriminatory
The Council of State rejects RESA's appeal against the Walloon Minister's annulment of its award of a judicial debt-collection contract to bailiff firm Tintin: even for 'excluded' legal services (article 28 §1 4° of the 2016 Procurement Act), the equality principle applies, and using 64 of 100 points on publicly available balance-sheet ratios while you yourself select which firms to consult means you can predict the winner before any bid arrives.
'Public contract' in the title, concession in the facts — only the second matters
The Council of State dismisses LED AD's appeal against the award of an LED-screen concession to Cityscreen because the city legally treated the contract as a concession, despite the term 'public contract' in the heading of the award decision.
A social award criterion without a link to the subject matter and without a control mechanism: doubly unlawful
The Council of State annuls a road-marking contract awarded by the city of Enghien because the social-employment award criterion was not linked to the subject matter of the contract and was insufficiently precise to allow control — the winner offered 700 hours of social employment on a contract whose total work volume was estimated at barely 480 person-hours.
Confidentiality is no excuse to black out the assessment of the winner
The Council of State suspends an award because the contracting authority redacted nearly all of the winner's evaluation in the version of the award report given to the unsuccessful bidder, and only filed the unredacted version once court proceedings had started.
Rewarding a bid for being 'better than the specifications require' is discrimination
The Council of State annuls a €4.2 million award for the construction of the Parc des Colombophiles in Anderlecht because Brussels Environment awarded the winning bid higher scores precisely because it deviated from a technical requirement in the specifications.
Two sister companies, one signature and a score of 5/10 on a 0-2-4-6-8-10 scale: double suspension
The Council of State suspends the award of a 6.7 million euro framework contract for police trousers to Sioen Nederland because the federal police inadequately reasoned the link between Sioen NV and Sioen Nederland BV, and because one competitor (Seyntex) received intermediate scores on an evaluation scale that only allowed even-numbered points.
When the contracting authority offers a chance to regularise and you refuse — that equals 'I do not accept the contract terms'
The Council of State dismisses Verhoeve Marc's challenge to the rejection of his lowest bid for the redesign of the Waaitjesstraat in Lebbeke: he read item 5 of the bill of quantities (600 m² of cobblestone surfacing) as covering only the repair of the ~50 m² still in place, refused the formal offer to regularise, and stuck stubbornly to his own reading — a stance the Council equates with non-acceptance of the contract terms.
SOFICO reads a binding yield threshold into its own tender documents — and loses the same award for the third time
The Council of State suspends the €3.17m award of a road-verge maintenance contract to SA Krinkels because SOFICO turned 'estimated' figures from Annex D of its own tender documents into binding yield and duration thresholds during the price review — leaving bidders unable to know in advance that any deviation would automatically signal an abnormal price.
School logo on cleaners' uniforms is no hidden sub-award criterion — three rounds of re-awarding confirm it
The Council of State rejects Iris Facility Solutions' suspension claim against GO! Scholengroep Huis 11: assessing 'staff policy', 'wearing the school logo on work clothes' and 'mandatory refresher training' under the award criterion 'quality control' does not create hidden sub-criteria as long as those elements were listed in the specifications as attention points.
Discount for multi-lot award? Then you must rank three times — not once
The Council of State suspends Idelux's award of nine waste-collection lots to Remondis because the intercommunal compared all offers against a single reference point (Remondis with discount) instead of ranking each scenario separately — a calculation error that shifted the outcome in Remondis's favour.
70 points for service, 30 for price in a book tender: acceptable when the market justifies it
The Council of State dismisses Standaard Boekhandel's challenge against the award to Distri-Bib for the Antwerp public library's book framework, accepting that service may weigh 70 out of 100 points because 85% of deliveries fall under the regulated book price.
A volume threshold of 70,000 cases a year is fine — but 'for one and the same client' is a separate decision that needs its own justification
The Council of State suspends the non-selection of bailiff Bordet for the joint debt-collection contract of SWDE and CILE because the selection criterion requiring 70,000 cases per year handled 'for one and the same client' lacks an independent justification and unduly restricts competition — while the previous tender allowed cumulation across multiple clients.
Three weeks faster than the winner — and yet the same 20/30: a bonus clause for early delivery you don't apply costs you the award
The Council of State annuls the City of Halle's award of the floor renewal of CC 't Vondel to Phenix Group: the specifications stated that an early delivery would have a 'favourable influence' on the execution-time criterion, but the City gave both Phenix Group and Stals en Zoon Parketvloeren — whose delivery was three weeks shorter — an identical score of 20 out of 30 with the sole motivation 'falls perfectly within [the] requested period'.
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.
A second 'reasoned decision' that fixes the numbers does not save the first
On 4 May 2023 STIB sent MoneyOak a reasoned award decision listing only the scores per bidder — and on 26 May, after the action was already filed, a 'complete' version including the percentages; the Council of State suspends nonetheless because the first version is the one that must be assessed legally.
Requested toilet-replacement simulation rescues bid with installation coefficient 0.2 against price challenge
Imtech bid installation coefficients of 0.2 to 0.5 for sanitary works in Brussels — far below competitors — compensating with a higher materials coefficient; the City asked for a simulation on concrete line items and accepted the justification, and the Council of State follows: in a unit-price contract, what counts is the combination of elements, not one isolated low number.
A contracting authority can require its bidders to work with a supplier who never submitted a bid — provided that supplier falls under a statutory exclusion ground
The Belgian Council of State rejects the action of three competing bailiffs against a TMVW tender that imposes cooperation with 'central bailiff Philip Scheir bvba' (appointed without competition) for the legal leg of external debt management — statutory bailiff tasks fall outside procurement law via art. 28 §1 4° e) of the 2016 Act, and without a cross-border element European transparency obligations also do not apply.
12 Nuctech customs scanners have been running for years — but for the 5 new ones, Chinese ownership was suddenly a security risk, and the Council sided with customs
The Council refuses the suspension of the award to Rapiscan Systems for mobile X-ray scanners for the Belgian customs (port of Antwerp and the entire Belgian territory) — Nuctech Warsaw, Polish-law subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned Nuctech group, was not even invited under article 33 §2 of the Procurement Act 2016 ('essential security interests of the realm'), supported by a confidential profile analysis from the State Security Service on the Chinese national intelligence law of 2017 and ties to Tsinghua University.
€262 million or €120 million in 'real-estate development turnover'? Adding holding income to clear the threshold — and losing under extreme urgency
The CIT BLATON – GHELAMCO consortium was not selected for the redevelopment of the former town hall of Etterbeek (a competitive dialogue requiring €120 million in 'real-estate development turnover' over three years), and the Council refuses suspension under extreme urgency because Ghelamco's attempt to add holding income (classes 74 and 76A of the annual accounts) to its actual sales turnover (class 70) does not match the accounting definition of turnover and because 'managing shares is not in itself a real-estate development activity'.
Unilaterally redrawing the price structure of an offer and calling it 'arithmetic-error correction' doesn't work — article 34 only covers errors whose result is contrary to the bidder's intention
The Council of State suspends the award of Charleroi's contract for rental and maintenance of work clothing because the city unilaterally 'corrected' CWS Workwear's prices under article 34 of the Procurement Royal Decree — while the alleged 'error' did not produce a result contrary to the bidder's intention, and the city did not seek the bidder's real intention but applied its own conception of what was acceptable.
A price analysis discussing only the more expensive offers leaves the winner out of frame — and missing the winner is missing the essence of the price examination
The Council of State suspends the award of the AViQ statutory auditor contract to L&S Réviseurs because the award report explains why the more expensive offers (RSM Inter Audit and the applicant) were higher, but says nothing about the price examination of the winner — while AViQ had built a 25% indexation into its estimate and the winner bid below that level.
An award report that also voices criticism of the winner is no reason to overturn the award — what counts is what the report puts beside it
The Council of State rejects an extreme-urgency action against the award of an architecture contract for a Schaarbeek crèche: the fact that the award report also expresses reservations about the winner does not mean the score of 4 out of 5 is unjustified, when alongside it five concrete advantages are listed that the applicants' bid does not offer.
If the tender documents make award conditional on a homologation 'before award', its absence is automatically a substantial irregularity
The Council of State rejects the suspension of a contract for 60,000 LED luminaires for the Liège grid operator RESA: by stating in the specifications that the luminaire model must have obtained the Synergrid '005' homologation 'before award of the contract', the specifications themselves qualified this as a minimum and substantial requirement — so Lightwell and Axioma's offers could be excluded as substantially irregular even though they had been invited to a BAFO and offered competitive prices.
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.
A natural-stone boulder where the spec required 'resin concrete': Brussels-Environment punished the compliant bidder, rewarded the deviant — and lost the contract
The Council of State suspends the award of a €4.2 million park redevelopment in Anderlecht because the contracting authority gave the winning bidder bonus points for a natural-stone climbing rock when the specifications explicitly required 'resin concrete' — and so pushed the rule-compliant competitor into second place by 1.68 points.
Whoever lost the 12-year IRISnet3 contract gets no second chance in extreme urgency — five grounds, all 'not serious'
The Council of State rejects Proximus' extreme-urgency suspension claim against the award of the IRISnet3 contract to Orange Belgium: all five pleas — alleged irregularity of the winner's free tools, abnormal pricing, regularisation issues and evaluation of qualitative criteria — are deemed 'not serious'.
A physical test piece as award criterion for restoration works? Permitted — even if the assessment of craftsmanship feels subjective
The Council of State rejects the extreme-urgency suspension against the award of the 'Maçonneries' lot of the restoration of the Sainte-Croix Collegiate in Liège to the temporary association Galère / Liégeois because a 'pièce d'épreuve' — a physical test piece in carved tuffeau stone — and the accompanying methodological note, together worth 20 points out of 100, are a valid award criterion and no manifest assessment error by the jury was demonstrated.
Did a tender clause look unclear? Ask for clarification during the procedure — afterwards is too late
The Council of State rejects the extreme-urgency suspension against the award of the digitisation of Verviers' civil registry to Vanden Broele because ADM Village only complained about 'incomprehensible' tender clauses after losing — while during the procedure it never asked for clarification and in its reply to the contracting authority's question even showed it understood the requirements, only that it found its own interpretation to offer more 'added value'.
Withdraw a first award decision and re-award to the other bidder? The motivation has to genuinely explain why you changed your mind
The Council of State suspends Verviers' second award decision because the motivation — a string of 'stereotyped formulas' on the conformity of the offers — does not show that the contracting authority actually carried out a fresh regularity check after withdrawing its first award, which had been based precisely on the substantial irregularity of that same offer.
If you don't check your e-Notification dashboard, the contracting authority can reject your bid — 'I didn't get the email' is no defence
The Council of State dismisses the extreme-urgency challenge by Tectum Constructors against the award to SCTD for the roofs of the Mons Music Academy: when the procurement is run via e-Notification, a bidder who does not consult its restricted file on that official platform cannot later claim it missed a price-justification request — the authority is not required to prove that the bidder actually received or opened the invitation.
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.
A 'required option' rules your bid out, an 'allowed option' does not — and what the tender does not impose as a minimum, bidders are free to limit
The Council of State dismisses Siemens Mobility's extreme-urgency challenge to the award of the Hermelijn tram midlife revision to CAF (76.75 vs 70.94 out of 100): CAF was free to limit its corrosion treatment to 20 m² of light rust per tram and 3 cracks because the tender set no minimum surface area, free to overlap its study and prototype phases because the tender only required a 40-day gap between document submission and prototype start, and free to offer an incomplete anti-collision system because that was an 'allowed' (not 'required') option — and Article 56 § 2 of the Royal Decree on special sectors 2017 only sanctions the option itself in that case, not the base bid.
A social award criterion for painting white lines on the road: too far from the object, too vague to score
The Council of State suspends the award by the city of Enghien of a framework agreement for road marking because it included socioprofessional integration of vulnerable groups as an award criterion that lacked a real link to the object of the contract and was insufficiently precise to compare offers.
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.
'Yes / no / in order': checkboxes in a table are no motivation for technical regularity — certainly not when the Synergrid homologation is wobbly
The Council of State suspends RESA's 10 million-euro award for 60,000 LED luminaires to Axioma-Lightwell and Schreder because the evaluation report substantiates the technical regularity of the winning tenders merely with three checkboxes reading 'non', 'non' and 'en ordre' — whereas at the hearing it emerged that the driver in the winning offer is not the one with which the luminaire obtained its Synergrid 005 homologation.
'Per-lot ranking' can also mean 'global ranking with per-lot derivation' — and if you don't clarify in advance, the authority decides
The Council of State dismisses Ghent University's suspension against the award of the VDAB GLOW contract because the specification allowed all 18 bidders to be ranked globally — not per lot — meaning Divergent lost its two East-Flemish lots to organisations that bid for other provinces.
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.
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.
A concession with no written criteria can still be annulled four years later — even when the defendant doesn't bother to fight back
The Council of State annuls, via the abbreviated procedure, two decisions of the City of Dinant distributing quays and boat moorings on the Meuse between tourist boat operators, because no selection criterion or reason was ever formulated — and the City didn't even ask the procedure to continue.
The tender requires integration with one supplier's hardware — and that supplier bids and wins. That alone is not bias
The Council of State refuses to suspend an award to French company Timescope for a VR application about Le Grognon in Namur, even though the tender expressly required integration with Timescope hardware — because that specification appears objectively justified by the subject matter of the contract and the applicant cannot demonstrate a concrete advantage.
The winner built the very quality framework the tender relies on — and that alone is not a reason to exclude them
The Council of State refuses, in extreme urgency, to suspend an award where the winning bidder (IPSO) had previously drawn up the quality reference framework and supporting database that the new tender re-used — because the applicant could not concretely demonstrate a competitive advantage.
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.
Awarding 'excellent' because a bid is better in 'at least 3 domains' — without ever saying which 3 — costs the award
The Council of State suspends Defence's award of the multi-year green-maintenance contract for the Florennes military zone to Krinkels because the formal motivation lists qualitative strengths per bidder but does not allow verification that the score 'excellent' (reserved for offers better than the others in at least 3 domains) was actually attributed in line with the announced evaluation method.
May the contracting authority allow a flawed subcontractor to be replaced — or must it? The Belgian Council of State refers the question to the CJEU
The Council of State reopens the debate in the annulment action against the award of a Ghent restoration contract and refers two preliminary questions to the Court of Justice on whether a contracting authority is obliged, or merely allowed, to require a tenderer to replace a subcontractor that does not meet the selection criteria.
You won the first suspension — and you think the contracting authority is now obliged to award to you? The opposite can happen: in round two you fall out on irregularities
The Council of State rejects Fire Technics's second urgent suspension request against the Hainaut-Centre rescue zone: after a successful first suspension in February 2020, the contracting authority may withdraw its decision and issue a new award decision in which Fire Technics's bid is excluded for substantial irregularities — even if that bid was found regular in the first round.
A 'selection' by a selection committee is not automatically a challengeable decision — wait for validation by the competent body
The Council of State declares the application of Step Group and Mimob against the selection of a competing project on the Prés de Tilff site inadmissible: a 'décision de sélection' of a parity selection committee is here only a preparatory act, and the final decision of the competent bodies did not yet exist when the petition was filed.
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.
A two-phase bid where phase 1 fails the minimum requirements is simply irregular — phase 2 will not save you, however brilliant
The Council of State rejects French supplier TONWELT's urgent suspension request against the award of multimedia devices to TAPART: even openly disclosing that your first delivery has a screen smaller than the specifications require (4.3 instead of 4.5 inches) is a substantial irregularity that voids your entire bid — a phase 2 with a 6.3-inch screen in 2020 does not cure it.
Selling a €1.17 million plot to a competitor — the lost profit you claim cannot float between €594,000 and €950,400, or there is no 'urgency'
The Council of State refuses to suspend the municipal sale of a 14,443 m² plot to Immo-3B because Caselia Development fails to substantiate its economic loss concretely — a profit range of €594,000 to €950,400 is no proof of urgency.
An award criterion pointing to a specifications article that doesn't exist, plus headline scores with no breakdown — Villers-la-Ville loses its cleaning tender on a misapplied 30-point criterion
The Council of State suspends the cleaning contract awarded by Villers-la-Ville because the third award criterion ('management and emergency interventions', 30 points) refers to an article 3.1 of the specifications that simply doesn't exist — and the authority gives identical 25/30 scores to bids with manifestly different quality.
Sorting in Lokeren counts as 'processing', pre-treatment in Hamme doesn't — Verko's own contradiction suspends the award
Verko unilaterally moved Van Werven's 'processing site' from Hamme (8.6 km) to Lanaken (149 km), wiping out 20 environmental points — but accepted Renewi's sorting as 'processing'; that asymmetric reading sinks the award.
What the contracting authority calls a 'wish' and what is a binding requirement — in 'Espace Rogier' that distinction costs the City of Namur a full suspension
The Council of State suspends the award of a 14 million euro combined contract to Cœur de Ville because the general programme — repeatedly and unambiguously — imposed an R+3 height for the private housing blocks, while the winning bid proposed R+5: a binding specification, not a 'wish', and the overshoot affects the price award criterion.
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'.
Switching to the intercommunal entity after the bids have come in — then you must have actually compared the prices, and that comparison must show in the file
The Council of State suspends the decision of Morlanwelz to halt the award of eighteen waste lots and continue cooperation with the intercommunal HYGEA, because the reasoning ('the offered conditions are not sufficiently interesting compared to what HYGEA can offer') is a boilerplate clause that leaves no trace of an actual price comparison.
Calculating the fee percentage on a fixed reference estimate rather than on the actual proposed project budget is no manifest error — it is a legitimate choice of the contracting authority
The Council of State rejects the suspension of the award of the Tournaisis police-station architecture contract to BAEB-BAG-VK Engineering, because a contracting authority that calculates the fee percentage on a common reference estimate (€10m) rather than on each bidder's individual project estimate stays within its discretionary freedom — even if the winner can thereby work with a much higher project budget (€14.3m) than the other bidders.
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.
An award criterion that lets the winner pick which prices actually count is no criterion at all
The Council of State suspends the award of four lots of an advertising-vitrine framework agreement for Brussels bus shelters because the financial criterion 'redevance' was calculated using indicative weightings on a product mix that the operator was never required to commit to — making the criterion speculative and invalid.
Damages after annulment: the principle is accepted, the amount isn't — debates reopened
The Council of State dismisses six admissibility objections against the damages claim of three 'reserve' bailiffs after the annulment of the award decisions for lots 1-4 of the Walloon bailiff framework — but cannot quantify the loss on the Walloon Region's untested figures and reopens the debates.
An 'additional tool' whose cost you leave out of your price gets no second chance
The Council of State refuses to suspend the award of the SPW hosting contract to NRB: ATOS had listed OpenShift in its bid as an 'additional tool' but did not include its licensing cost in the price — that is a substantial irregularity, not an ambiguity in the specification.
Evaluating an excavator while 'abstracting away the boom': that does not work
The Council of State annuls the award of an excavator contract to Luyckx because, at the specification-mandated demonstration, Luyckx brought a Hitachi with a two-piece boom while its bid (and the specification) called for a monoboom — the City of Genk's defence that it 'abstracted away the boom option' during the evaluation does not stand.
A 'facilitating' agreement with Rotterdam turns out to be a disguised public procurement — no invoice ≠ no procurement
The Port of Antwerp directly concludes a 'storage agreement' with the Port of Rotterdam without any tender, convinced that it merely 'facilitates' for its dredging contractors, but the Council of State holds after almost six years of litigation that the agreement — combined with the related EVOA contract and a €1.2 million guarantee — is in fact a public service contract and annuls the approval.
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 your specifications ask for 'recent certificates from the manufacturer', you cannot later accept a supplier's own technical sheet
OTW required 'recent certifications' from the constructor for ZF gearbox oil, but awarded to WOLF OIL which only attached its own technical data sheet — the Council of State suspends with immediate execution: a contracting authority cannot loosen its own specifications after the fact.
'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.
A 'purely material error' is not just any error — if the contracting authority must guess to correct it, it falls outside article 96 §1
Veolia had wrongly allocated biomass cogeneration costs to the central boiler in its offer for the ULiège HVAC maintenance contract; the Council of State holds that such a misallocation is not a 'purely material error' when the contracting authority cannot redistribute without speculation — the extreme-urgency suspension is rejected, Cofely keeps the contract.
Rejecting an offer 35% above your budget as 'unacceptable' is not an irregularity — certainly not when that budget was nowhere in the tender documents
The City of Antwerp rejected Antwerp Recycling Company's offer as irregular because the total price was 35% above the available budget, without mentioning that budget in the tender documents and without price questioning — the Council of State suspends the award to Bruco Containers for breach of the price examination regime under the 2017 Award Royal Decree.
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.
It's the authority's job to send you the full motivation — not yours to request it
The Council of State suspends the award of a stucco-restoration contract at Gaasbeek Castle because the award report was sent with redacted figures and assessments — with only one point separating winner and runner-up.
RENEWI's price went up by EUR 113,000 after 'correction' — and the file does not say how
The Belgian Council of State suspends the award of a 4-year waste management contract to RENEWI because CHR Citadelle did motivate why a correction was needed but never explained how the price was actually recalculated — and without those calculation details, a 'rectification' of EUR 113,000 may in reality be a new price offer.
'Spontaneously' correcting a bid upward by 40% is allowed — provided the contracting authority explains why it is not a new offer
The Council of State suspends the award of a public works contract to LECOMTE because the municipality of Meix-devant-Virton accepted that LECOMTE corrected its bid after opening from EUR 119,973 to EUR 167,628 — an increase of nearly 40% — without any single word in the award decision explaining why this qualified as a correctable error rather than a modification of the bid.
One kilometre counts for the price criterion, 287 km do not — an open invitation to speculation
The Council of State suspends the award of a multi-year coach transport contract to TRANSIBUS because the price criterion of the city of Mons added only the unit price for a single kilometre, without taking into account the actual distances to be driven — a method that allows structurally different price structures and invites speculation.
An amicable settlement during a document-access procedure: mutual waiver of procedural costs is valid, but the EUR 200 filing fee stays with the withdrawing party
The Council of State records Energys' withdrawal after it reached an amicable settlement with the municipality of Habay-la-Neuve over the refused communication of tender documents for a biomass district-heating contract — a mutual waiver of procedural costs is accepted, but the EUR 200 filing fee remains payable by the withdrawing party.
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.
You can't challenge specifications you only downloaded on the bid opening day
The Council of State declares INSTELE's appeal inadmissible: contradictions between the contract notice and the specifications (3 vs 24 months duration, 6 vs 7 December as opening date) do not turn the specifications into a challengeable 'decision' — INSTELE knew of the tender from 22 November but only downloaded the specifications on 6 December and asked no questions.
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.
The price on the bid form and the price in the award report differed by 60,000 euros — and nobody explained why
The Council rejects Monument Vandekerckhove's appeal against the award to PPR-Vibed (€1,752,813), but rules that the duty to state reasons was breached because the contracting authority failed to explain why PPR-Vibed's price in the award report was suddenly €59,469 lower than at the opening session — and orders the Flemish Community to pay costs.
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.
Leaving an unsigned offer on e-procurement isn't a double submission — it's an abandoned half-finished project
Aswebo had uploaded documents to e-Tendering without ever signing the submission report, then joined THV Stadsbader-Aswebo for a 7-million-euro road works tender — Roads and Traffic excluded both offers as 'double bids', but the Council of State suspended that decision: art. 54 §2 requires a purpose-related test, not textual punishment.
The same degressive percentage does not automatically apply to every award criterion — read where weighting per item exists
The Council of State rejects the extreme-urgency action of Moments Furniture, which argued that Vivalia should also have applied the degressive percentages (100%, 70%, 40%...) globally to the 'technical aspects' criterion of 45 points — whereas the specifications applied those percentages only item by item, because there was a separate weighting per item in column D of the inventory.
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.
Caught off guard by an unannounced tasting visit with no warm meal ready? Then your bid was the problem, not the contracting authority
The Council of State rejects Compass Group's extreme-urgency action against the award of a €4 million catering contract for the OCMW Aalst care homes to Sodexo, because the specifications expressly provided for an unannounced tasting visit at the production site stated in the bid — and the fact that Compass could only serve cold-line dishes at that visit is its own problem.
Cheapest bid (€42,350), 40/40 on price — and still loses, because the work plan didn't spell out the 'obvious' tender requirements
The Council of State rejects Abesim's extreme-urgency suspension, the lowest bidder for an OVAM phytoremediation study: it scored a perfect 40/40 on price (€42,350 vs €77,755 for the winner) but lost so heavily on quality that OVAM was entitled to award the contract to the more expensive consortium of UHasselt-Bio2clean-Arcadis-Witteveen+Bos.
Two procedural errors by the OCMW — yet no suspension, because without a proven impact on the ranking there is no standing
The Council of State refuses to suspend the OCMW Jodoigne's award to TCO Service for meal delivery to Le Clair Séjour, because ISS Catering shows neither through the unverified honour declaration nor through the 'impossible' 10.59% VAT rate that it should have won the contract.
25 references earn 10 out of 20 — when the contracting authority adds a hidden sub-criterion after the opening
The Council of State suspends the award of the design of the Terhagen community centre because AGB Rumst, after opening of the bids, split the fourth award criterion into two weighted sub-criteria — a split that gave Evolta (25 references) only 10/20 and the winner Signa (2 references) 9/20.
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.
A contracting authority that secretly factors budget allocation into a methodology criterion rewrites its own specifications — and gets suspended
The Walloon Region scored the methodological award criteria partly on the basis of budget allocation and person-days that were nowhere announced as criteria in the specifications; the Council of State suspends the award because this modifies the criterion a posteriori or makes it unforeseeable.
Vlarema requires municipalities to conclude an agreement with a recycling centre — that creates no monopoly and does not displace the procurement law
ILVA awarded the collection of household textile waste for ten years exclusively to three recycling shops on the basis of an alleged 'statutory delegation' under the Flemish Vlarema regulation, but the Council of State suspends: neither the 2005 recognition decree nor article 5.1.7 of Vlarema confers an exclusive right on recycling centres — a public procurement procedure was required.
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.
A live software demo is allowed — but the bidder cannot score for features that surface for the first time during that demo
The Council of State annuls the award to Randstad of the HYGEA temp-staffing contract because IDEA scored Randstad on two software features — integrated priority lists and cancellation up to 15 minutes before deployment — that were not in the bid itself but only emerged during the product demo a month after bid opening.
'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.
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 email from the contracting authority does not amend the specifications — bidding below the minimum capacity remains a substantial irregularity
The Council of State rejects Stago BNL's extreme-urgency appeal against the award of four haemostasis analyzers to Siemens, because Stago offered devices with 260 and 100 analyses per hour where the specifications required 300 and 150 — and because a clarifying email from the hospital to Stago alone, which did not address capacity, could not override the specifications.
Class 4 is in the specifications, class 3 is not — but you cannot pull such a minimum threshold out of a hat
The Council of State suspends the award to Groenservice of the installation of an artificial-turf football pitch for the municipality of Anderlecht, because the municipality had excluded the lowest bidder BVBA MAB on the basis of an unpublished minimum threshold — references had to exceed €500,000 — that appeared nowhere in the specifications or the notice.
Accepting a 7-year-old town hall reference? Yes, as long as the final acceptance still falls within the three-year window
The Council of State rejects the extreme-urgency action by architectural firms Alinea Ter and Atelier de l'Arbre d'Or against the award by IDELUX of the project author contract for the Mardasson polyvalent hall in Bastogne, because the reference of the winning team — the Durbuy town hall from 2009 — remains acceptable as long as final acceptance (9 December 2012) falls within the three-year window of article 72, 7° of the Royal Decree of 15 July 2011.
Giving everyone 30 out of 30 for methodology? Then you've switched off your own award criterion
The Council of State suspends the 36-month auditor college contract awarded by FOREM to KPMG–Joiris Rousseaux, because the contracting authority gave all four ranked bidders the maximum score (30/30) on the 'audit approach and planning' criterion without concretely explaining why their methodologies were considered equivalent — even though the gap between the first and third ranked bidder on the other two criteria was only 1.08 points.
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.
A contracting authority that overrules its own jury must own the deviation — not rewrite the jury
After an initial suspension, the city of Sint-Niklaas gets a green light for a second award to the same bidder because the council may set aside its jury's advice on the second award criterion in a reasoned way — provided the new reasoning stands on its own.
Two equal scores of 90/100, another 'concrete case' to break the tie — and the Council annuls: that's adding a new award criterion
The Council of State annuls the award to Luxtax for transporting the National Orchestra's instruments, because the contracting authority — faced with two tied scores of 90/100 — did not follow the procedure of article 101 §3 of the Placement Decree (request for improvement from the two tied bidders) but instead asked all four bidders for a price on a new monthly schedule and used that to build a second comparison table, which amounts to adding an award criterion during the procedure.
Five years of maintenance required in the tender, but only one year in the price formula — not contradictory if the end user signs the maintenance contracts
The Council of State rejects Presta Services' challenge and rules that the contracting authority could include only one year of maintenance in the price formula, even though the tender required bidders to offer at least five years — because the maintenance contracts are signed by sports clubs (the end users), not by the authority itself.
If you request documents via both freedom-of-information and art. 877 Judicial Code, you implicitly pick one track
The Council of State declares itself incompetent to rule on Jérouville's appeal against SRWT's partial refusal to provide documents about modifications to the Charleroi metro contract, because Jérouville was already requesting the same documents via art. 877 of the Judicial Code in her damages procedure before the Namur court.
What you didn't impose 'on pain of substantial non-conformity' you can't later treat as essential
The Council of State suspends SPGE's decision to retroactively declare Carmeuse's bid irregular for deviating from a technical specification that the specifications had NOT marked 'on pain of substantial non-conformity' — and which cannot be promoted to essential after the fact.
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.
Awarding points with 'value added' and 'value lost' without saying how many — does not hold up
The Council of State suspended the award to Sefac for tram lifting columns at De Lijn because the evaluation report assigns points using labels like 'value added', 'significant value lost' and 'very large value added' without ever explaining how many points each is worth.
When your consultant becomes your supplier: that doesn't break the award — but only if your procurement design has already flattened the advantage
The Belgian National Office for Annual Leave first had A.O.S. (later Colliers) draw a dynamic-office concept for its new Rigoletto building, then awarded the furniture contract to that same Colliers, and the Council of State refuses to suspend: a prior-involvement situation under article 64 of the Royal Decree on Placement 2011 doesn't automatically force the buyer to formally verify the competitive advantage, provided the procurement architecture itself neutralizes that advantage.
'Best on two criteria beats best on one' is not a motivation — it's an arithmetic error
The Council of State suspends Infrabel's award to Schenck Process for 15 train weighing systems because the contracting authority simply added up two of three criteria against one, without weighing the actual gap between bids per criterion — while Lloyd's Register was €1.65 million cheaper.
Declaring a bid 'substantially irregular' requires more than a copy-paste sentence
The Council of State suspended the award because IFAPME declared Froireca's bid irregular using a generic phrase about 'comparability' and 'competition', without concretely explaining why the deviation was material — and what was added later in pleadings does not count.
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This page shows all rulings of the Council of State (Belgium's supreme administrative court) on transparency 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 →