Price justification
When a price appears abnormally low, the tenderer must be given the opportunity to justify its prices. The contracting authority must carefully and concretely assess the justification — a motivated acceptance or rejection is required.
Council of State rejects annulment appeal against award of Materialenkaai green space works – price investigation screening method with 0.5 percent threshold of average total price is acceptable and assessment of price justification falls within discretion
The Council of State rejected the annulment appeal by NV C.N. against the award of the public works contract for the construction of a green and recreational space on the Materialenkaai to NV D.A.O., because the screening method used in the price investigation — a threshold of 0.5 percent of the average total price of all submitted tenders to identify non-negligible items — was acceptable and the assessment of the price justification for two items with apparently abnormally low unit prices fell within the contracting authority's discretion.
Suspension application under extreme urgency against exclusion of tender for motorway cleaning on E25 rejected – yield of 6.82 km/h for selective litter picking on foot not manifestly unreasonable as assessed abnormal, and ground concerning unequal treatment in price verification inadmissible for lack of standing
The Council of State rejected the suspension application under extreme urgency by SRL LUX GREEN against the exclusion of its tender by SOFICO for a framework agreement for selective litter picking on the E25 motorway (North Luxembourg district), because the first ground challenging the abnormal price assessment was not serious — the contracting authority had not unreasonably found that a yield of 6.82 km/h for on-foot litter pickers was unrealistic and that the cost of the accompanying vehicle was not included in the price breakdown — and the second ground concerning unequal treatment in the price verification of the selected tenderer was inadmissible for lack of standing, since the applicant's own tender had been validly excluded.
Annulment of award for energy renovation experts (INTERREG RENOVALT) – IFAPME allowed chosen tenderer to improve offer by requesting additional details on award criterion without giving same opportunity to other tenderer (violation of equal treatment)
The Council of State annulled IFAPME's award of lot 1 (Walloon side) of the contract for energy renovation experts under the INTERREG RENOVALT project to SM POLY-TECH, because IFAPME asked only POLY-TECH to detail its offer for the five sub-activities of the qualitative award criterion (technical-pedagogical competences) in violation of the equal treatment principle, while SM ST.AR.TECH was not given the same opportunity, and the precisions obtained contained new elements that were positively assessed.
Road maintenance Baelen: price justification based on subcontractor offer for different quantities is manifestly unreasonable
The Council of State annuls the award of a road maintenance framework agreement because the contracting authority could not accept the winning tenderer's price justification for three bituminous surface treatment items — a mere reference to a subcontractor's offer without detailed substantiation is insufficient, and the subcontractor calculated prices based on 1,000 m² while the bill of quantities specified 100 m², meaning the unit prices for the bill quantities were not justified.
Rejection of price justification for 42.86% cheaper geophysical survey tender withstands marginal review
The Council of State rejects the emergency suspension request against the declaration of substantial irregularity of a tender for geophysical soil research, ruling that the contracting authority could reasonably find that the price justification — consisting of general efficiency factors and a mere cost breakdown per item — did not adequately rebut the apparent abnormality of a total price 42.86% below the average.
Rejection of extreme urgency suspension against irregularity declaration for framework agreement bank works Resilient Westhoek — price justification rightly rejected due to missing overhead on study portion, unsubstantiated unit prices and post factum justification — negligible items correctly delineated using 0.25% threshold
The Council of State rejected the extreme urgency suspension claim by TM B.-G.D. against the Vlaamse Waterweg's declaration of their offer for the 'Resilient Westhoek – Bank Works' framework agreement (€30 million) as substantially irregular, as the authority did not exceed its assessment margin: the 0.25% threshold for negligible items was carefully determined, the grounds for rejecting the price justification were sound, and arguments not included in the actual price justification were post factum justifications the authority need not consider.
Suspension of award of insurance brokerage pooling contract for Flemish government entities – statement of reasons for price investigation is mere boilerplate: estimate redacted, justification elements not concretely assessed, reasons communicated ex post via observations and intervention request
The Council of State suspended the award by the Flemish Community of an insurance brokerage pooling contract for Flemish government entities to NV A., because the first limb of the single ground was serious: the statement of reasons for the price investigation in the award report was mere boilerplate — the estimate was redacted, the three justification elements from the price justification were adopted without concrete assessment, and the redaction of essential reasons in the version communicated to the applicant violated the formal statement of reasons obligation.
Suspension of fire station renovation award due to inadequate price justification examination — municipality failed to examine price justification in its entirety and rejected offer on factually incorrect grounds
The Council of State suspended the award of works for the renovation and extension of the fire station and municipal depot in Sint-Gillis-Waas, finding that the municipality had not examined the tenderer's price justification with the required diligence and had declared the offer irregular on grounds lacking factual and legal basis.
VMG-De Cock appeal against irregularity declaration for Bert Carlier refectory offer rejected — insufficient price justification does not outweigh 40% below average
Appeal rejected: VMG-De Cock's annulment appeal against the irregularity declaration of its offer for the renovation of the refectory at the Bert Carlier Institute in Ghent is rejected — the brief price justification for a unit price 41% below average failed to sufficiently rebut the presumption of abnormality despite reference to an in-house carpentry workshop, and the contracting authority was not obliged to conduct a follow-up inquiry.
School Het Oogappeltje Wommelgem: annulment – abnormal price detection method unverifiable and price investigation of selected items insufficient
The Council of State annuls for the second time the award decision of the municipality of Wommelgem for the extension and renovation of primary school Het Oogappeltje, because the submitted documents do not show that the detection of apparently abnormal unit prices was carried out in accordance with the contracting authority's own methodology — using a 1% rule and 30%/50% thresholds — and because the investigation of the selected items did not meet the requirements of a normally diligent contracting authority, as abnormal unit prices were accepted based on vague and general findings without requesting price justification.
Zandvliet waiting dock: rejection of annulment appeal – negative unit prices for soil disposal in Rotterdam insufficiently justified, contracting authority's assessment margin not exceeded
The Council of State rejects the annulment appeal by the temporary association HYE–Boskalis against the award by De Vlaamse Waterweg for the construction of a waiting dock at Zandvliet, because the negative unit prices for soil disposal in Rotterdam (-€4/m³ and -€5/m³ for items 2 and 3 of conditional part 1) were insufficiently justified — the adjustment of a reference price for Maas sand of €6.50/m³ down to €4 and €5/m³ due to 'lesser quality' lacked further specification or argumentation, and the contracting authority did not exceed its assessment margin.
This page shows all rulings of the Council of State (Belgium's supreme administrative court) on price justification in public procurement. Each ruling is summarized by TenderWolf in plain language, with a legal lesson and a practical question to ask yourself. View all rulings →