No choice with fixed max­i­mum num­ber of bid­ders

On Octo­ber 31, 2025, the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment Cham­ber (VK) of South­ern Bavaria issued an impor­tant deci­sion (Ref.: 3194.Z3-3_01-25–56) on the self-bind­ing nature of pub­lic con­tract­ing author­i­ties. In essence, it con­cerned the ques­tion of whether a con­tract­ing author­i­ty may devi­ate from a pre­vi­ous­ly deter­mined max­i­mum num­ber of bid­ders in the nego­ti­at­ed pro­ce­dure if sev­er­al can­di­dates are equal­ly suit­able.

Our video dis­cussing the judg­ment:

The facts of the case

A pub­lic client issued a Europe-wide invi­ta­tion to ten­der for project plan­ning ser­vices for civ­il engi­neer­ing struc­tures in the field of flood pro­tec­tion. The cho­sen pro­ce­dure was a nego­ti­at­ed pro­ce­dure with a call for com­pe­ti­tion.

In the con­tract notice, the con­tract­ing author­i­ty stip­u­lat­ed that a min­i­mum of three and a max­i­mum of five can­di­dates should be invit­ed to sub­mit ten­ders. After the suit­abil­i­ty test, how­ev­er, it turned out that six can­di­dates had achieved the full num­ber of points. In order not to fur­ther restrict com­pe­ti­tion, the con­tract­ing author­i­ty decid­ed against a lot­tery pro­ce­dure and instead invit­ed all six can­di­dates to sub­mit a bid. One bid­der, who was sub­se­quent­ly not award­ed the con­tract, com­plained about this breach of the self-defined max­i­mum num­ber.

Key point of the deci­sion: The strict self-bind­ing nature of the client

The South­ern Bavar­i­an Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment Cham­ber ruled in favor of the appli­cant. The deci­sion clar­i­fies two key prin­ci­ples:

• Vio­la­tion of the trans­paren­cy require­ment: If a con­tract­ing author­i­ty has bound itself by spec­i­fy­ing a max­i­mum num­ber in the con­tract notice, devi­at­ing from this lim­it con­sti­tutes a breach of the pro­hi­bi­tion of arbi­trari­ness and the require­ment of trans­paren­cy. Bid­ders must be able to rely on the fact that the “rules of the game” will not be changed uni­lat­er­al­ly dur­ing the pro­ce­dure.
• Mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Sec­tion 75 (6) VgV: The con­tract­ing author­i­ty argued that the pro­vi­sion in Sec­tion 75 (6) VgV was a dis­cre­tionary deci­sion (“may”), which allowed it to sim­ply admit more bid­ders as an alter­na­tive to the lot­tery pro­ce­dure. The VK clear­ly dis­agreed: The stan­dard only per­mits selec­tion by lot as an excep­tion to the suit­abil­i­ty-based com­pe­ti­tion. How­ev­er, it does not pro­vide a basis for sub­se­quent­ly expand­ing the num­ber of com­peti­tors beyond the announced max­i­mum num­ber.

Tips for pub­lic clients: Cre­ate plan­ning secu­ri­ty

Care­ful­ly deter­mine the max­i­mum num­bers: When prepar­ing the announce­ment, care­ful­ly con­sid­er whether a max­i­mum num­ber is absolute­ly nec­es­sary.

Prepa­ra­tion for a tie: Make pro­vi­sions in the ten­der doc­u­ments for the event of a tie in the suit­abil­i­ty test.

Con­sis­tent appli­ca­tion of the lot­tery pro­ce­dure: If more can­di­dates are equal­ly suit­able than there are places avail­able for the sec­ond phase, the lot­tery pro­ce­dure in accor­dance with Sec­tion 75 (6) VgV is the legal­ly secure method of choice. A “well-inten­tioned” expan­sion of the group of bid­ders makes the entire pro­ce­dure vul­ner­a­ble.

Tips for bid­ders and fund­ing recip­i­ents: vig­i­lance dur­ing the pro­ce­dure

For com­pa­nies bid­ding for pub­lic con­tracts, the rul­ing gives rise to impor­tant test points:

• Com­par­i­son with the con­tract notice: In the infor­ma­tion let­ter in accor­dance with Sec­tion 134 GWB, check exact­ly how many bid­ders have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pro­ce­dure. If this num­ber devi­ates from the orig­i­nal max­i­mum lim­it, this con­sti­tutes a breach of con­tract that is sub­ject to com­plaint.
• Demand doc­u­men­ta­tion of the eval­u­a­tion: The rul­ing also shows that a blan­ket eval­u­a­tion with­out detailed doc­u­men­ta­tion of the qual­i­ta­tive dif­fer­ences (e.g. in the case of ref­er­ences) is often not valid before the award­ing cham­ber.