Procurement glossary · Challenge and remedies
Procurement challenge
A legal claim by an aggrieved supplier that a contracting authority breached procurement law. Brought inside strict time limits, usually measured in weeks from when the supplier knew or ought to have known of the breach. Issuing before the contract is signed can suspend the authority's ability to sign it.
Also called Procurement claim.
What it means in practice
Challenges are rarer than supplier frustration suggests and the time limits are the reason. The clock generally runs from when you knew or should have known of the breach, not from when you decided to do something about it, and it is short.
The grounds that succeed are procedural rather than about taste. Evaluating against criteria that were not published, scoring inconsistently between bidders, a manifest error on the face of the evaluation, or an award that breaches the authority's own stated methodology. A claim that the evaluator undervalued your approach is a disagreement, not a ground.
The decision point is the standstill period. Issue before the contract is signed and the practical remedy can be a re-run. Issue afterwards and the realistic outcome is damages, which are harder to establish and rarely commercially satisfying.
Where suppliers get caught
Spending the standstill period asking for more feedback and then deciding. The clock does not pause for a debrief. If the award letter contains something that looks like a procedural breach, take advice in the first days of the window, not at the end of it.
Common questions
How long do I have to challenge a procurement decision?
Time limits are short, generally measured in weeks from when you knew or ought to have known of the breach, and they are strictly applied. Take advice immediately rather than after exhausting the informal route.
Will challenging damage our relationship with the buyer?
It can, and that is a genuine commercial consideration. It is also true that a procurement run improperly damages every future competition with that buyer. The judgement is specific to the relationship, the contract value and the strength of the ground.
Related terms
If a tender in front of you turns on this, send us the documents and the deadline and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth bidding. Call 020 3668 5488, or read the rest of the UK procurement glossary.