Bulk delivery with or without on-site cooking: Fedasil catering goes to Aramark, and Umami's irregular offer blocks every further grievance
The Council of State rejects Umami's urgent suspension against the award to Aramark of the Fedasil catering contracts for the reception centres in Jabbeke (€2,150,283.80 incl. VAT) and Glons (€3,803,491.88 incl. VAT): because Umami was itself substantially irregular for cooking on site rather than delivering prepared bulk meals, it cannot invoke the difference in treatment on the Excel calculation errors as unequal treatment.
What happened?
The Federal Public Service Home Affairs, through Fedasil, launched a catering contract for two reception centres, with estimated values of €2,250,000 for Jabbeke and €4,500,000 for Glons. After an initial award decision of 1 March 2023 that the Council had suspended, the authority took fresh decisions on 28 April 2023 and again awarded both lots to Aramark — for €2,150,283.80 and €3,803,491.88 incl. VAT. Umami was once more declared substantially irregular: its offer envisaged on-site preparation with its own kitchen brigade, whereas the specifications called for bulk delivery of ready-prepared meals. Umami raised six pleas. The most striking concerned unequal treatment in the arithmetical corrections: on 9 January 2023 the authority had sent Aramark a letter containing 'spreadsheet corrections' — adjustments to locked cells and faulty calculation formulas in the Excel inventory the administration itself had supplied — and 'bidder corrections' — a proposed downward revision of strikingly high unit prices for packages at 30% occupancy. Aramark agreed; Umami was offered no correction at all. The Council acknowledges that those spreadsheet errors were 'identical for all bidders', but accepts the authority's explanation: because Umami's offers were found irregular at the outset, no price verification was carried out and a correction on her side was moot. Moreover, in the second award decision the authority dropped the 'bidder corrections' (the original unit prices remained in place) and implemented only the pure Excel corrections. The award amount therefore matched the corrected price inventory, so the sixth plea (prohibited negotiations) also lacked factual basis. The urgent suspension is rejected; Umami is ordered to pay €1,988 in costs (two filing fees of €200, contributions of €48, procedural indemnity of €1,540) and Aramark €300 in filing fees for its interventions.
Why does this matter?
This ruling delivers a hard lesson on sequencing: once an offer is substantially irregular, it drops out of the usual 'equal treatment' arguments around calculation errors, price verification and corrections. The authority may — and must — complete the regularity check before starting price verification, and a bidder branded irregular along the way immediately loses the right to demand correction through the back door of Article 34 RD 2017 on procurement. The ruling also confirms a useful delimitation: material errors in the Excel inventory the authority itself drafted (locked cells, faulty formulas) count as 'calculation errors and pure material errors in the offers' within the meaning of Article 34 § 2, even though they technically originate in the specification file. As for Umami's substantive argument — that Aramark also delivered in bulk — the Council holds firm on the essential distinction: Aramark delivered ready-prepared bulk; Umami delivered bulk that still needed to be cooked on site. That is not a detail but a fundamental difference in the service to be rendered.
The lesson
For a bidder, the regularity check is an absolute floor: fail it, and no other plea — however legally sound — will hold. Read the specifications first for their core deliverable (what must really be supplied?) before pursuing optimisation, cost structure or creative variants. For contracting authorities the sequence is critical: document the irregularity assessment first, and only then the arithmetical and price review, explicitly stating why corrections are carried out for some bidders and not for others. Formally unequal treatment remains defensible as long as it is substantively explained by a prior irregularity finding.
Ask yourself
Does my offer literally meet the core deliverable the specifications ask for (here: prepared bulk delivery), or am I starting from my own interpretation (on-site cooking) that the authority may classify as a substantial deviation?
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 →