After the award decision: standstill and your rights

After the award · This guide was generated with the help of an AI system. Its legal references were checked against the official EU texts listed under Sources on 9 October 2026. Next review due by 9 October 2027, or sooner if the law changes. EU rules only. Not legal advice.

Short answer. The contract can’t be signed until a standstill period has passed. Under EU law that’s at least 10 calendar days when the decision is sent electronically. National law can make it longer, and the decision itself has to tell you the exact period. You can ask in writing why you lost and what the winning tender had that yours didn’t. The buyer has up to 15 days to answer, which can be longer than the standstill. So ask on the day the decision arrives, and check the deadline for challenging the decision straight away.

EU law · The standstill period

A contract covered by Directive 2014/24/EU may not be concluded before the standstill period has expired (Directive 89/665/EEC, Article 2a(2)). The minimum depends on how the decision reaches you:

The decision you receive must come with a summary of the relevant reasons and a precise statement of the exact standstill period that applies under national law (Article 2a(2)). If the notice doesn’t state the period, that’s worth raising immediately.

Member States may switch the standstill off in three situations (Article 2b): where the Directive doesn’t require a contract notice to be published first; where the only tenderer concerned is the one who wins and there are no candidates concerned; and for contracts under a framework agreement or a dynamic purchasing system. For the last case, the Directive adds safeguards that can make the contract ineffective if certain rules are broken.

Deadlines for challenging the decision

If a Member State sets a time limit for applying for review of a buyer’s decision, it can’t be shorter than 10 calendar days from the day after the decision is sent electronically. With other means it is 15 days from sending, or 10 days from receipt (Article 2c). That’s a floor, not the actual deadline in your case. The real deadline, the body you apply to and any fees are set nationally.

National law · Read your notice, not this page

National law can set longer standstill periods and different review deadlines. Use the period stated in the decision you received. Don’t rely on the EU minimum.

EU law · What you can ask for

The buyer has to inform everyone of its decision “as soon as possible”, including the reasons for any decision not to award a contract or to restart the procedure (Article 55(1)). Beyond that, you can make a written request. The buyer then has to answer “as quickly as possible, and in any event within 15 days” (Article 55(2)):

• If your request to participate was rejected: the reasons for the rejection.
• If your tender was rejected: the reasons. Where it was rejected on technical equivalence or performance grounds, the reasons for that finding.
• If your tender was admissible: the characteristics and relative advantages of the winning tender, and the winner’s name.
• If your tender was admissible and there were negotiations or a dialogue: how they were conducted and progressed.

What the buyer can hold back, and what it can’t

The buyer may withhold information whose release would impede law enforcement, be contrary to the public interest, prejudice the legitimate commercial interests of a particular operator, or prejudice fair competition (Article 55(3)). The Court has drawn the limits of that power:

• No automatic confidentiality. A practice of accepting bidders’ confidentiality requests as a matter of course isn’t compatible with the Directive. The buyer has to assess whether the information really has commercial value beyond the contract in question (Articles 21(1) and 55(3); Antea Polska, C‑54/21).
• The essential content, at least. Where full access is refused, the buyer must still give you access to the essential content of the information, so that your right to an effective remedy is respected (Antea Polska).
• The clock waits. Where a court finds that information was wrongly treated as confidential, the time limit for a new challenge to the award decision can’t start running until you have access to that information (Antea Polska).
• A refusal can be challenged. A decision refusing to disclose information is itself open to review. The buyer, and on review the court, has to weigh your right to an effective remedy against the competitor’s right to protect confidential information, and give reasons (Klaipėdos regiono atliekų tvarkymo centras, C‑927/19).

Our analysis · Two clocks that don’t line up

The buyer has up to 15 days to answer your request. The standstill can be as short as 10. If you wait a week before asking, the contract may already be signed by the time the answer arrives. Once the contract is signed, what you can still achieve usually narrows. The exact consequences are set nationally.

There’s a second mismatch. The review deadline can also be as short as 10 days from the day after the decision was sent. If the decision’s summary of reasons doesn’t tell you enough to judge whether to challenge, you may have to decide before the fuller answer under Article 55(2) comes in. That’s a reason to ask immediately and precisely, and to talk to a lawyer early if the contract matters to you.

Practice · The first day after the decision

1. Write down the dates. When was the decision sent, by what means, and what standstill period does it state? What does it say about review deadlines and where to apply?
2. Send your Article 55(2) request the same day. Ask specific questions: your scores per criterion, the winner’s scores, the relative advantages of the winning tender, and how price was converted into points.
3. Recalculate. Use the formula in the documents and the scores you’re given. Arithmetic errors are the easiest thing to spot and the quickest to raise. The scoring calculator can help.
4. Check the low bids. If the winner’s price looks very low, ask whether the buyer requested an explanation under Article 69 (see abnormally low tenders). Ask expressly and in writing: the courts have tied the buyer’s duty to explain its view of a rival’s price to a bidder that expressly asked (see abnormally low tenders in the EU case law).
5. If information is refused, ask for the essential content and the reasons for the refusal, in writing.
6. Decide early whether to challenge. If the contract matters, contact a procurement lawyer in that country before the standstill ends, not after. What a review body can order before and after signature is in challenging an award decision.

What this page doesn’t cover

National review procedures, bodies, fees and deadlines. The EU rules on review powers, damages and ineffectiveness are in challenging an award decision. Utilities contracts, which fall under a parallel Remedies Directive. Contracts in the UK.