When two bidders in a three-player market suddenly claim twice as many partners, you have to verify — not explain it away
The Council of State suspends an electronic meal-voucher award to Edenred because the French Community uncritically accepted Edenred's dramatically higher partner numbers (39,103 vs 20,592 in Flanders) when Edenred's own offer signaled those figures included MasterCard merchants without genuine affiliation contracts.
What happened?
In November 2022 the French Community launched a tender for electronic meal vouchers (specs DMPA 4430). Award criterion 3 (16 points) scored bidders on the number of restaurateurs and merchants with an 'affiliation contract' per region. Two bidders responded: Edenred and Sodexo (now Pluxee). Both quoted 0 EUR for almost everything except a 6.60 EUR fee per voucher — both got 48/48 on price. But on the partner-network criterion, Edenred reported 39,103 partners in 'rest of Belgium' versus Pluxee's 20,592 — nearly double. Edenred won 95.93 to 91.35. Pluxee filed an extreme-urgency suspension. Their argument: the Belgian market has only three operators bound by non-exclusivity rules — networks should overlap heavily. Edenred was including MasterCard merchants (its '4C' network) where the contractual link runs through the MasterCard payment system, not a direct affiliation contract. The Council of State found the smoking gun in Edenred's own offer (pages 43-44): 'Merchants accepting Mastercard today will have access [auront accès] to Edenred's solutions without technical intervention. Only signing a contract with Edenred will suffice to join the network.' That future tense reveals that those contracts were not yet signed at submission. The Council ruled that art. 81 §3 of the 2016 procurement law requires concrete verification of self-reported figures whenever the offer itself raises doubt. The award was suspended.
Why does this matter?
For procurers with criteria built on self-declarations (counts, ratings, certifications), this judgment raises the bar. 'Broad discretion' no longer covers you if the offer itself flagged the data as shaky. For bid managers, claiming inflated numbers in your dossier hands the runner-up ammunition. And for self-declarations that are verifiable elsewhere (websites, public registers), a quick sample is no longer optional — it's a legal duty under art. 81 §3.
The lesson
If one bidder reports significantly more in a count-based criterion than a competitor in a market with few players: stop scoring and verify. Threshold: if the top bidder claims 1.5x or more than the runner-up in a structurally constrained market, verify — minimum via the bidder's own website, ideally with samples from the underlying dataset. Document the verification in your award decision. Without that verification step, your decision will not survive the first suspension challenge.
Ask yourself
Do you use an award criterion based on self-reported counts (merchants, clients, sites, branches)? For the top-ranking bidder, did you sample-check at least one source (website, public register, sector report) and did you write that check into your award dossier? If not — your decision is dead on first extreme-urgency challenge.
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 →