The com­plaint in the award pro­ce­dure

The com­plaint in the award pro­ce­dure: Time lim­its, strat­e­gy and the dif­fer­ence to the bid­der ques­tion

The com­plaint is the first for­mal instru­ment with which bid­ders can react to an alleged breach of pro­cure­ment law. It is addressed to the award­ing author­i­ty itself — and is a pre­req­ui­site for a review pro­ce­dure before the pro­cure­ment cham­ber to be admis­si­ble at all. Any­one who uses the com­plaint incor­rect­ly, sub­mits it too late or con­fus­es it with the bid­der’s ques­tion may lose all rights in the ongo­ing pro­ce­dure.

Our Man­ag­ing Direc­tor Dr. Christoph Kins com­ment­ed in detail on the func­tion and strate­gic impor­tance of the rep­ri­mand in the Baden-Würt­tem­berg State Gazette (issue of 13 March 2026). The fol­low­ing overview sum­ma­rizes the key prac­ti­cal aspects.

What is a rep­ri­mand?

The com­plaint is the for­mal objec­tion to an alleged breach of pro­cure­ment law to the award­ing author­i­ty. It gives the con­tract­ing author­i­ty the oppor­tu­ni­ty to cor­rect the error itself — and at the same time secures the bid­der’s rights in the pro­ce­dure. The legal require­ments for ini­ti­at­ing a review pro­ce­dure are set out in Sec­tion 160 GWB.

When does a rep­ri­mand make sense?

Not every dis­agree­ment with the client jus­ti­fies a rep­ri­mand. How­ev­er, there are con­stel­la­tions in which it is par­tic­u­lar­ly obvi­ous:

After an exclu­sion due to a for­mal error: If an offer has been exclud­ed due to an alleged for­mal error, the com­plaint is a use­ful means of ques­tion­ing the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the exclu­sion.

In the event of exclu­sion due to inad­e­qua­cy: If the con­tract­ing author­i­ty con­sid­ers a ten­der to be unrea­son­ably low and excludes it, this can be object­ed to if the accep­tance is not ten­able from the bid­der’s point of view.

In the case of a super­fi­cial rejec­tion or exclu­sion let­ter: If the let­ter does not con­tain any com­pre­hen­si­ble rea­sons — in par­tic­u­lar no infor­ma­tion on how the offer was eval­u­at­ed in com­par­i­son to the oth­er offers — a rep­ri­mand may be use­ful to demand clar­i­ty.

In the event of errors in the award doc­u­ments: If the award cri­te­ria are unclear, the suit­abil­i­ty require­ments are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly high or there are oth­er defi­cien­cies in the spec­i­fi­ca­tions or the con­trac­tu­al con­di­tions, there is gen­er­al­ly a need for rep­ri­mand.

Rebuke and bid­der ques­tion: an impor­tant dif­fer­ence

The bid­der ques­tion is not a sub­sti­tute for the com­plaint. Bid­ders who wish to object to a breach of pro­cure­ment law must mark this as a com­plaint — not as a ques­tion. Any­one who for­mu­lates a com­plaint in terms of con­tent but labels the let­ter as a bid­der ques­tion risks the con­tract­ing author­i­ty not issu­ing a for­mal rejec­tion. The con­se­quence: The 15-day dead­line for sub­mit­ting a request for review (Sec­tion 160 (3) sen­tence 3 GWB) is not trig­gered — the bid­der retains the option of for­mal­ly sub­mit­ting a com­plaint with­out know­ing it.

This may seem cal­cu­lat­ed, but there is a risk that the client will not even rec­og­nize the hid­den com­plaint as such and the desired effect will not be achieved.

Dead­lines: the deci­sive fac­tor

The right to com­plain is sub­ject to strict dead­lines. Any­one who com­plains too late los­es their rights — the review bod­ies then no longer exam­ine the com­plaint. This is known as preclu­sion.

Errors in the ten­der doc­u­ments: Vio­la­tions of pro­cure­ment law that are rec­og­niz­able from the con­tract notice or the doc­u­ments must be report­ed by the end of the ten­der peri­od. This results from Sec­tion 160 (3) No. 3 GWB.

Rec­og­nized legal errors: Any­one who rec­og­nizes a breach of pub­lic pro­cure­ment law must report it with­in ten cal­en­dar days (Sec­tion 160 (3) No. 4 GWB). The deci­sive fac­tor here is when the bid­der actu­al­ly had knowl­edge — the bur­den of proof for this lies with the con­tract­ing author­i­ty.

After rejec­tion of the com­plaint: If the con­tract­ing author­i­ty rejects the com­plaint, the bid­der has 15 cal­en­dar days to sub­mit an appli­ca­tion for review to the pro­cure­ment cham­ber (Sec­tion 160 (3) sen­tence 3 GWB). This peri­od begins upon receipt of the rejec­tion.

Tips for bid­ders

Check the ten­der doc­u­ments for errors at an ear­ly stage — and react if you find any. If you rec­og­nize a legal vio­la­tion and delib­er­ate­ly save it for lat­er, you run the risk of fail­ing with your com­plaint: Rec­og­nized errors must be report­ed with­in ten days of becom­ing aware of them.

Con­sis­tent­ly adhere to the dis­tinc­tion between bid­der ques­tions and com­plaints. A bid­der’s ques­tion is not a free tick­et — it does not com­ply with com­plaint dead­lines.

If you receive a let­ter of rejec­tion or exclu­sion, check whether the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion meets the require­ments. A super­fi­cial expla­na­tion can be grounds for a com­plaint.

Seek legal advice when decid­ing whether to lodge a com­plaint — espe­cial­ly if it is unclear whether and when the time lim­its under Sec­tion 160 (3) GWB have already expired.

Tips for clients

For­mu­late rejec­tion and exclu­sion let­ters in a com­pre­hen­si­ble man­ner. A let­ter that pro­vides no infor­ma­tion about the eval­u­a­tion of the offer in com­par­i­son to oth­er offers unnec­es­sar­i­ly increas­es the risk of rejec­tion.

Respond to any com­plaints received in a sub­stan­tive and time­ly man­ner. The rejec­tion of a com­plaint trig­gers the 15-day dead­line — which may also be in your inter­est in terms of pro­ce­dur­al secu­ri­ty.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion: Dr. Christoph Kins, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of abante Recht­san­walts­ge­sellschaft, com­ment­ed in detail on the func­tion and strate­gic impor­tance of the rep­ri­mand in the Baden-Würt­tem­berg State Gazette (13 March 2026): The com­plaint as an instru­ment in the award pro­ce­dure