A '<' sign before your deadline turns your times into a range — and costs you a major SEPP contract
Cohezio, an established occupational health and prevention service provider, loses its SEPPT contract with the Province of Liège because it used formulae like '< 24h' instead of fixed intervention times — which the province read as a prohibited time range, and which the Council of State found not manifestly unreasonable enough to suspend.
What happened?
On 10 June 2022 the Province of Liège launched an open tender for an External Service for Prevention and Protection at Work (SEPPT) — a contract up to 8 years (4 fixed + 4 yearly extensions). The specifications imposed a mandatory information session on 26 August 2022. Cohezio's representative drove to the wrong address (her GPS led her to rue Ernest Solvay 11 in Herstal instead of Liège) and arrived between 10:35 and 10:40 — the session had just ended. The province refused her an attendance certificate. On 30 August the province notified Cohezio of its exclusion. Cohezio still filed a bid on 2 September and on 8 September went to urgent suspension. The Council suspended the exclusion on 28 September 2022 (arrest 254.616). The province withdrew its exclusion on 11 October and began evaluating offers. On 25 November 2022 the province declared Cohezio's bid null on two substantial irregularities plus one non-substantial. Substantial irregularity 1 (criterion 4 — deadlines and availability): Cohezio used formulae like '< 24h' or '< 1 month' for some intervention times. The province read this as 'time ranges' — banned by the specifications. Substantial irregularity 2 (criterion 2 — IT interface): Cohezio mainly described a new 'Cohezio4u' platform that would only go live in March 2023. The province found this insufficiently binding. Non-substantial: late arrival at the information session. Cohezio went back to urgent suspension. The Council found the first sub-ground (the ranges) not serious — the province could reasonably read a '<' sign as introducing a margin and undermining the precise commitment. Second sub-ground (interface): again the Council sided with the province. Describing a future platform live only from March 2023, while the contract runs up to 8 years, can reasonably be seen as insufficient. Third sub-ground (regularisation): the province could have asked for clarification, but article 71 of the Act of 17 June 2016 makes this a possibility, not an obligation. Second ground (failure to share the 26 August minutes): inadmissible — the minutes contained nothing that could have prevented the two flagged irregularities. The urgent suspension was rejected.
Why does this matter?
For bid managers: how you phrase a deadline can decide substantial regularity. '<' looks informally synonymous with 'within', but legally it creates an indeterminacy the authority can read as a 'range'. If you offer a platform or service still in development: either commit explicitly to the go-live date before award, or describe only the existing platform — not a hybrid. For contracting authorities: specifications that ban 'ranges' give you a strong defence even when the deviation is graphically tiny (one sign).
The lesson
Read your specifications before filling in times: if 'no ranges' is required, give a precise number (e.g. 24 instead of '< 24'). For a platform not yet live: document a formal commitment to the go-live date (e.g. certificate from the IT manager, dated, in the bid itself, not just in an annex). And before submission, check that you don't describe a hybrid (future + existing platform mixed) — a known weakness.
Ask yourself
Take a current bid in preparation and find every place you give times or percentages. Any '<', '>', '≥' or '±' symbols? Cross-check against the specifications: do they require 'precise' or 'specific' deadlines? If so, remove the symbols. And if you describe a service not yet operational: have you in the bid itself (not only in annexes) included a formal commitment to the operational date?
About this database
The Council of State (Raad van State / Conseil d'État) is Belgium's supreme administrative court. In disputes over public procurement — from contract awards to tenderer exclusions — the Council of State is the final arbiter. The rulings in this database are summarised by TenderWolf in plain language, with practical lessons for tenderers and contracting authorities. View all rulings →