On October 17th 2023 the National Board of Appeals at the President of the Public Procurement Office issued a judgment dismissing in full the appeal of a competing contractor to the Law Firm’s Client in the tender won by the latter.
The ordering party, which is the General Directorate for National Roads and Highways, conducted an open tender procedure for the award of a public contract for demolition work. A number of bids were submitted, of which the Law Firm’s Client’s bid received the second highest score. The bid with the highest score was rejected due to errors made by the contractor submitting it, consisting of inconsistencies between the bid and the contract documents.
The contractor whose bid was rejected filed an appeal with the National Board of Appeals and demanded that the contracting authority be ordered to rescind the rejection of its bid and re-evaluate and select the bid. He argued that the errors he made should have been corrected as obvious mistakes, or alternatively, the contracting authority should have called on him to submit explanations.
Lawyers from the public procurement law team of the Law Firm Babiaczyk, Skrocki and Partners entered the proceedings on behalf of the Law Firm’s Client on the side of the contracting authority. Based on an extensive analysis of previous case law of the National Board of Appeals, they showed that granting the appellant’s demands would lead to a violation of the prohibition on the contracting authority’s negotiations with contractors and making substantive changes to the bid. This position met with the full approval of the National Board of Appeals, which led to a favorable judgment for the Client.