Your 10/10 from last year doesn't entitle you to the same score this year
The Council of State rejects Royal Eijkelkamp's emergency suspension request against the award of a €465,850 water-quality contract to Koenders Instruments — the fact that the applicant scored 10/10 on two sub-criteria in an earlier similar procurement does not constitute a serious ground.
What happened?
The Flemish Environment Agency (VMM) ran an open procedure for multi-parameter probes to measure water quality in Flemish rivers and streams. Four bidders competed: Elscolab, Koenders Instruments, Royal Eijkelkamp and Rovin. Award criteria: price (40 points), technical quality (50 points split over 7 sub-criteria), and sustainability (10 points). On 13 December 2022 the €465,850 (incl. VAT) contract was awarded to Koenders. Royal Eijkelkamp — the lowest-priced bidder — challenged the decision. Their main argument: in an earlier identical-product procurement on 14 July 2022 they had scored 10/10 on 'applicability' and 'technical specifications'; now they got 9/10 and 8/10. They also pointed to a factual error in the report (6 ports mentioned instead of the 8 they offered), argued 'calibration' had been evaluated twice, and that Koenders unjustly received a perfect 'lifespan' score without specifying years. The Council of State dismissed all of it. Earlier scores create no 'unchangeable right' — the contracting authority must re-evaluate each procurement, taking into account market evolution, the quality of other bidders, and its own experience with a product. The admitted port-count error wouldn't have changed the ranking, so no legitimate interest. On the other points, the scored motivations are reasonable on first inspection, and the Council won't substitute its own assessment for the authority's.
Why does this matter?
Bidders who regularly supply the same equipment to the same authority often develop a 'baseline expectation': 'I got 10/10 last time, so that's my floor.' This judgment puts that to rest: prior scores have no legal weight. For contracting authorities, it confirms they can update their evaluation per procedure without explaining why the score differs from a previous round. For bidders, it means no coasting on routine — every offer must be sharp and complete, as if it's the first.
The lesson
If you file an emergency suspension based on score differences, don't argue from comparisons with prior procedures — focus on concrete, demonstrable unreasonableness in this evaluation. And critically: show that correcting those errors would actually push you to first place. An 'admitted error' that doesn't change the ranking is legally worthless — you have no standing.
Ask yourself
Before filing a suspension based on an evaluation error: calculate the maximum point impact yourself, and check whether it actually leapfrogs the winner. If not: no interest, no chance.
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 →