How to Appeal on a Procurement Matter

A public procurement appeal matter is initiated through a written petition to the Finnish Market Court. A case can be submitted to the Market Court by concerned parties and in certain cases by certain authorities. The petitioners are mainly undertakers operating in the sector that has participated in a tendering procedure or whose participation in the competitive tendering has been prevented due to the reasons caused by the contracting authority.

A petition shall be submitted to the Market Court within 14 days of the date on which the tenderer was notified in writing of the award decision and the grounds thereof, and received written appeal instructions to the Market Court. If the contracting authority has not attached written appeal instructions to the procurement decision or if the decision is substantially defective, the 14 days’ time limit does not start to run.

Procurement contracts exceeding EU thresholds may not be concluded or put otherwise into effect if the matter has been referred to the Market Court. In these cases, procurement contracts may be concluded only after the Market Court has handed down its final decision or given a special permission to proceed to the contracting authority.

The petitioner must in its appeal present the grounds for its claims, i.e. establish in what way the contracting authority has not observed the rules governing public procurement. Claims for compensatory payment must be quantified.

In addition, it is possible to request rectification from the contracting authority itself. The contacting authority may thereafter, based on its discretion, revoke its decision. The submitting of a request for rectification does, however, not affect the time limits for referring a public procurement matter to the Market Court, and they must therefore be done in parallel.