Supreme Court: diplomas can equal certificates — compare content, not form

On 28 October 2026Teismai the Lietuvos Aukščiausiasis Teismas quashed the appellate rulingTeismai in case e3K-3-125-933/2026Teismai and sent a procurement dispute back for examinationTeismai: a contracting authority and the lower courts had rejected a bidder's university diplomas as non-equivalent to required professional certificates without ever comparing what each document actually certifiesTeismai. The ruling is finalTeismai, effective on adoptionTeismai, and lays down how equivalence must be assessedTeismai.

The dispute arose from a tender by the Asmens su negalia teisių apsaugos agentūra for maintenance and development of the ANTA information system. It required four key specialists — project manager, IS analyst, security specialist and testing specialist — to hold certificates such as PMP, CompTIA Project+ or CISSP, or equivalentsTeismai. A bidder group led by UAB „Informacijos linija", with LLC „Hexide Digital" and UAB ConfiStecH, offered university diplomas with annexes, written explanations and comparisons of study content against the required certificatesTeismai. On 11 September 2025 the agency rejected the bidTeismai; the Vilniaus apygardos teismas (8 December 2025) and the Lietuvos apeliacinis teismas (26 February 2026) agreed that diplomas prove general higher education, not the specific qualification the certificates attestTeismaiTeismai.

The Supreme Court disagreed with the method, not necessarily the resultTeismai. A university diploma is not automatically equivalent to a professional certificateTeismai, but it is not automatically disqualified eitherTeismai. Under the Švietimo įstatymas, education itself is a recognised level of maturity, competence and qualificationTeismai, and a university degree certifies a qualification whose content can be established from the study programme, subjects, duration and examinations passedTeismai. An equivalent document is one objectively confirming competence or qualification no lower than what naming the certificate seeks to verifyTeismai. Deciding that requires assessing (i) the requirements for obtaining the certificates, (ii) the qualifications and competences the certificates confer, (iii) a comparison of those with the qualifications and competences the education confers, and (iv) only after that comparison a conclusion on equivalenceTeismai. Form or title alone — diploma here, certificate there — can never settle itTeismai.

That reading, the court held, is what the Viešųjų pirkimų įstatymas 17(1) principles of equal treatment, non-discrimination and transparency demandTeismai: an "or equivalent" option must be real, not formalTeismai. The appellate court had additionally found that the bidder had not even tried to prove equivalenceTeismai — yet the case file contained its qualification-structure descriptions, comparisons and explanationsTeismai. Ignoring submitted equivalence evidence while declaring none was submitted breaches the duty to examine facts and law properlyTeismai.

The burden of proof stays with the bidderTeismai: under VPĮ 50(4) and 50(5) the supplier must substantiate compliance, including by equivalent document, with objective data — its own comparisons or third-party findingsTeismai — because a bare assertion is normally insufficient unless equivalence is obvious from the document itselfTeismai. But that burden must not be unbearableTeismai, and the authority's side of the bargain is strict: it must assess the content submittedTeismai, may not invent additional unpublished requirements when judging an equivalentTeismai, and has tools for doubt — bidder clarifications or experts — rather than a free hand to declare proof insufficientTeismai. Strict assessment still applies, but strictness means rigour of comparison, not rejection by document nameTeismai.

The appellate ruling was therefore annulledTeismai and the case remanded for a content-level analysis of each of the four qualification itemsTeismai: what the bidder submitted, what those documents certify, whether that suffices for each requirement, and whether the agency examined the material and gave content-based reasonsTeismai. Costs follow the remand.

Legal basis: the ruling applies VPĮ 17(1), 47(1)(6)(7) and 50(4)(5), Švietimo įstatymas 2(4)(7)(8), Mokslo ir studijų įstatymas 4(4)(5) and 58, and Civilinio proceso kodeksas 359(1)(5), 362, 93 and 98.