KnowledgeEuropean public tender
An error in your bid: what can you still correct?
A forgotten annex, a calculation error, a form half filled in. It happens to good bidders too. The question then is: can you still correct it? The short answer: sometimes, within limits, and you have no right to it.
Written by the Atvalio editorial team: people who spent years bidding on tenders themselves. About us
The main rule: what you submit counts
Whether your bid is complete at the deadline is your responsibility. The buyer assesses what it received. Negotiating with you afterwards or letting you improve something is in principle not allowed, because that treats the other bidders unequally.
When correction is possible
- SometimesA simple clarificationThe buyer asks what you meant by something already in your bid.
- SometimesAn obvious mistakeA clear slip or calculation error that can be corrected without doubt, without changing your offer.
- SometimesA document that already existedA missing document may only be added if it is objectively clear it existed before the deadline. That follows from the EU Manova ruling.
- NeverA new bidA different price, a better text, a document you only make now. That is no longer a correction.
Important: correction is an option for the buyer, not a right for you. It may ask, but does not have to. Dutch case law shows both sides. A missing open price breakdown, needed to test the prices, made a bid invalid. A part of the ESPD that was not relevant to that procedure could be corrected.
A correction is a favour the buyer may grant you, not a right you can count on.
Your only real protection: checking
If you do not want to correct errors, do not make them. That sounds obvious, but it takes discipline: keep checking, tick everything off, even when you are tired and the deadline is close. Make sure all that effort was not for nothing.
- A list of every mandatory documentFrom the tender documents, not from memory. Tick each one off when it is really there, completed and signed.
- Every quality question, part by partIs every requested part there, recognisable and within the format rules?
- Price and text side by sideThe same quantities, names and term in your plan, your price sheet and your forms.
- A second pair of eyesSomeone who did not write the bid sees what you overlook.
How to organise the last days, read in the final week. Where the ESPD often goes wrong, read in filling in the ESPD.
HOW ATVALIO HELPS
Atvalio checks your bid before you submit: every mandatory document from the tender documents, every quality question part by part, the format rules, and whether price, text and forms agree. It reports what is missing or wrong, so you fix it yourself before it is too late. You submit.
Atvalio Tenders is coming soon. On the waiting list, you can be the first to start a 14-day trial on a real tender.
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READ ON
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