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First, a little necessary theory. The current Public Procurement Act (Act No. 134/2016 Coll.) is the fundamental piece of legislation governing how public contracting authorities in the Czech Republic “buy” supplies, services and construction work.
The Act concerns two parties. On one side is the contracting authority. The one that announces the contract. On the other is the supplier. The company that competes for the contract and submits a bid. The ZZVZ sets the rules for both parties.
A procurement procedure is a formalized process by which the contracting authority selects a supplier. The Public Procurement Act distinguishes between several types of procurement procedures; the most common are listed below, each with different rules for participation, time limits and room for negotiation.
One of the most common types of procedure. The contracting authority publishes the contract, and anyone who meets the conditions can submit a bid. No prior selection, no limit on the number of participants. Most of the contracts you will encounter as a supplier are awarded this way.
An accelerated format for below-threshold contracts. The contracting authority publishes the contract on its buyer profile and may at the same time approach at least 5 suppliers. Time limits are shorter and the procedure is less formal.
First, the contracting authority assesses qualifications and selects the suppliers who will be invited to submit a bid. Only in the second stage do the selected suppliers submit their bids.
These are used exceptionally, for contracts where the contracting authority cannot precisely define the subject matter in advance.
For suppliers, it is crucial to know which type of procedure they are in. This determines the time limits for submitting bids, the possibility of negotiation and the rules for defending your position. In extreme cases, the contracting authority may even unexpectedly cancel the procurement procedure, and you need to be able to respond immediately.
The estimated value of a public contract is an estimate of the total cost of performing the contract, set by the contracting authority before the procurement procedure begins. The ZZVZ distinguishes three categories based on estimated value.
| Contract type | Financial threshold | Procurement procedure |
|---|---|---|
| Small-scale public contracts (VZMR) | Up to CZK 3 million (supplies/services) or CZK 9 million (construction work) | The contracting authority follows its own internal rules |
| Below-threshold public contracts | From the VZMR limit up to the above-threshold limit | Procurement procedure under the ZZVZ – most often the simplified below-threshold procedure. Details often decide the outcome. |
| Above-threshold public contracts | Exceed the EU financial thresholds | The strictest rules – longer time limits, broader obligations. They require experienced legal and strategic support. |
Do not risk losing months of work to a trivial administrative error. Our team, led by Matej Šandor, builds on unique experience of working for the largest contracting authorities in the Czech Republic. We know how contracting authorities think when evaluating bids, and we use this knowledge to help you succeed. For us, the law is a tool for winning you the contract.
Tell us about your contract at info@endors.cz. Or take a look at the services we offer in public procurement.
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Matej Šandor headed public procurement at Czech Television for 4 years and has over 15 years of experience in public procurement. He has been on the contracting authority’s side and today, thanks to his unique knowledge, he helps suppliers succeed – which is also why he has written up the most common mistakes suppliers make.
Some still see the tender documentation only as “technical background” for preparing a bid, not as a document that in fact sets the rules and defines the scope for the supplier’s later defense.
“Suppliers wrongly assume that they will be able to deal with any problems only after submitting a bid or if they are excluded.
If the tender documentation is unclear or contains requirements that the supplier considers unlawful, discriminatory or technically impossible to meet, it is generally necessary to respond without undue delay. Typically through a request for clarification of the tender documentation or by filing objections,” emphasizes attorney Matej Šandor.
Clarification of the tender documentation is one of the supplier’s most important means of defense. It is not just an opportunity to “ask about” technical details.
The contracting authority’s answers can fundamentally affect the content of the tender conditions, the way the bid is prepared and even the pool of potential suppliers.
In practice, we therefore recommend paying particular attention to:
“In practice, it is not unusual for key conditions to be “hidden” in annexes, technical specifications or additional information published during the procurement procedure,” warns Matej.
One of the most widespread myths in public procurement is the belief that any shortcomings in your bid can be remedied later. The basic provision in this respect is Section 46 of the Public Procurement Act, which allows the contracting authority to request clarification or supplementation of information, documents, samples or models submitted by the supplier.
However, the key is to distinguish between a permissible clarification / supplementation of the bid and an impermissible change to its substance. In other words, under certain conditions the law allows some ambiguities to be removed or certain documents to be added, but it does not allow the bid itself to be “rewritten” after the deadline.
In certain cases, it may even be permissible to add a new subcontractor to demonstrate qualification, provided this does not change the evaluated content of the bid itself.
In its judgment, file no. 30 Af 10/2023, the Regional Court in Brno, for example, emphasized that the purpose of Section 46 of the ZZVZ is not to formalistically reject bids because of remediable defects, but neither is it to allow the competitive parameters of a bid to be adjusted after the bid deadline has expired.
Conversely, the following are typically impermissible:
“For information that directly affects the evaluation of bids, the possibility of subsequently supplementing or amending it is significantly limited, as such a step could impermissibly interfere with the outcome of the evaluation.” emphasizes Matej Šandor.
Before submitting a bid, suppliers should therefore pay particular attention to:
If you are not sure, an experienced public procurement lawyer will help you analyze the contracting authority’s request and prepare a response.
The digitalization of public procurement has greatly simplified communication between contracting authorities and suppliers. At the same time, however, it has created an entirely new category of procedural problems. Many suppliers pay maximum attention to the content of their bid but much less to how it is submitted. It is precisely technical or formal errors in electronic communication that often result in a bid being “disregarded.”
Typically, this involves:
Public procurement today is standardly conducted through electronic tools such as NEN or E-ZAK, and each system has its own specific operating rules.
The technical set-up of a particular electronic tool can have a major impact on, for example:
What matters is whether the bid is properly delivered on time through the electronic tool. The law expressly links delivery in the electronic tool to the moment the data message is received. Submitting at the last minute is quite risky, because any problem with uploading or confirming the submission may mean that the bid is not recorded in the system in time.
In practice, it therefore pays not to wait until the last few minutes, to archive the submission confirmation, to check that all uploaded files are complete and to verify that the system actually records successful delivery.
In public procurement, an electronic signature is not always decisive. If an act is performed through an electronic tool or a data box, the law considers it signed even without a signature.
However, if communication does not take place through an electronic tool or a data box, an electronic signature may, on the contrary, be necessary.
In practice, it is therefore not enough to rely on the general idea that “some form of electronic sending will do” - you must always check the specific rules of the procurement procedure in question.
Today, it is often the technical and procedural details of electronic communication that decide whether a bid will even be opened and evaluated.
Even strong, substantive arguments can fail to have the desired effect if the supplier misses statutory time limits or chooses the wrong procedural route. From a procedural point of view, public procurement is an extremely formalized environment. A supplier’s defense is therefore not just a question of “whether they are right,” but also of when and how they assert it.
The supplier’s basic means of defense are objections under the Public Procurement Act. Yet many suppliers still file them:
Filing objections in time is often the only way to prevent unlawful conduct by the contracting authority while the procurement procedure is still under way. And if you are unsure about the tender documentation, it is generally better to deal with it RIGHT AWAY – not after you have been excluded. Matej Šandor will help you identify weak points and prepare a request for clarification or objections – just get in touch at info@endors.cz or fill in the form.
Typical examples are situations where:
Defense tactics are often as important as the arguments themselves
A successful defense in public procurement is not just a matter of knowing the law. The right procedural strategy also plays an important role.
In some cases, it may be appropriate to:
In other cases, on the contrary, it may be key to react immediately and prevent the procurement procedure from continuing on an unlawful basis.
The business and reputational side of the whole situation is often important too. Suppliers often wonder:
“In practice, however, professionally prepared and objectively worded objections are a standard part of the public procurement market and a legitimate tool for protecting a supplier’s rights,” adds attorney Matej Šandor.
At the same time, there are situations in which an active procedural defense before the Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS) can be crucial not only for the specific contract but also for the supplier’s future position in the market.
Typical examples include:
In practice, it pays to deal with problematic situations as early as possible – ideally before submitting a bid or immediately after identifying the contracting authority’s questionable conduct.
Have you been unfairly excluded, or are you facing unfair conditions? Time is relentlessly working against you. Use our public procurement legal services and file objections.
In public procurement, the outcome is often decided by seemingly minor details that the supplier underestimates as an “administrative formality.”
One of the riskiest areas is the provision of the bid security. In practice, mistakes repeatedly occur, for example:
“And with the bid security, the scope for subsequent corrections tends to be very limited. I remember a case where a supplier submitted a bank guarantee with an incorrectly stated name of the procurement procedure. Although it was clear from the circumstances which contract the guarantee related to, the contracting authority excluded the bid on the grounds that the security did not meet the requirements of the tender documentation,” Matej Šandor recalls.
A supplier submitted references whose content matched the contracting authority’s requirements, but the documentation did not make it unambiguously clear that the supplier had performed the required part of the work to the required extent. The contracting authority subsequently did not recognize the qualification.
Common problems in practice include, for example:
It is also very common for a bid to contain:
Inconsistent documents in particular can raise doubts about the content of the bid as a whole.
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Matej combines legal practice, technology and corporate management. Alongside his legal practice, he has held managerial and statutory positions. He brings clients a combination of legal, commercial and strategic perspectives. He headed public procurement at Czech Television for 4 years. Over 15 years in public procurement in total. He has been on the contracting authority’s side and today, thanks to his unique knowledge, he helps suppliers succeed.
Write to us at info@endors.cz or fill in the form. We will get back to you within 24 business hours to arrange a consultation with Matej Šandor.
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