Top administrative court keeps breach, scraps 25% EU-funds correction

On 28 October 2026Teismai the Lietuvos vyriausiasis administracinis teismas (LVAT) partly granted the Health Ministry's appealTeismai in case eA-382-968/2026: it left standing the finding that the ministry breached procurement rulesTeismai in an EU-funded tender for ultrasound diagnostic devices, but it annulled the financial correction the Centrinė projektų valdymo agentūra (CPVA) had imposedTeismai and sent the correction question back to the agency for a fresh decisionTeismai. The ruling is final and not subject to appeal.Teismai

The ministry ran the project for better access to cardiologist and nurse consultations for heart-failure patients, worth 2,767,221 Eur. Under the project it held an international open tender for ultrasound diagnostic devices, split into two parts; the breach concerned part II, covering 26 devices with 1,100,000 Eur with VAT earmarked. On 12 December 2022 the ministry signed contract No S-302 with UAB "Tradintek" for 20 units: 639,000 Eur excluding VAT, 773,190 Eur including VAT. The supplier lodged the insurer's Atlikimo laidavimo draudimo raštas No 99370 of 4 December 2022 as the contract performance guarantee.

CPVA found, and the courts agreed, that the guarantee did not match the tender's Specialiosios sąlygosTeismai. Clause 5.2 required the issuer to compensate the buyer's losses on demand up to the guaranteed amount, which the courts read as covering direct and indirect lossTeismai; the letter covered only direct lossTeismai. The letter added a term with no counterpart in the contract, providing that the guaranteed amount decreases in proportion to the services rendered under the contract. And clauses 6.2 and 6.3 provided for late-payment amounts (delspinigiai) with a right to draw on the guarantee and terminate the contract unilaterally once they reached 0.7 per cent of the contract priceTeismai; the letter carried neitherTeismai. A corrected letter of 20 July 2023 still did not cover the late-payment and termination exposureTeismai, so it did not cure the defect retrospectivelyTeismai.

By accepting a guarantee narrower than its own published terms, the ministry materially modified essential tender conditionsTeismai and breached the equal-treatment, non-discrimination and transparency principles of Viešųjų pirkimų įstatymas (VPĮ) 17(1)Teismai. The courts further agreed that, under VPĮ 86(2), a winner that fails to lodge a compliant performance guarantee is deemed to have refused to conclude the contractTeismai; with only one compliant bidder in this tenderTeismai, the authority should have organised a new procurement instead of signing and performing the contract on softened termsTeismai.

The correction did not survive. CPVA had applied a 25 per cent correction to the contract value falling under the projectTeismai (773,190 EurTeismai, i.e. 193,297.50 Eur) by analogy with point 17 of table 2.2 of the Commission Guidelines C(2019) 3452, and the Regionų administracinis teismas on 13 November 2024 had reduced it to 10 per centTeismai on proportionality groundsTeismai. The LVAT annulled the correctionTeismai: the decision contained no individualised reasoning on why the exact ineligible amount could not be calculatedTeismai and treated the breach as automatically harming the Union budgetTeismai, contrary to Reglamento (ES) Nr. 1303/2013 2(36), which requires real or potential harmTeismai, and 143(2)Teismai, which demands a proportionate correction reflecting the nature and gravity of the breach and the loss to the fundTeismai, as explained in the ESTT judgments in Obshtina Svishtov (C-175/23) and ANAS (C-545/21). The part of the first-instance judgment that kept a 10 per cent correction was set aside with itTeismai; the violation assessment standsTeismai. The question of any correction goes back to CPVA to decide anew.Teismai

Legal basis: the ruling applies VPĮ 17(1) and 86(2), Reglamento (ES) Nr. 1303/2013 2(36), 6 and 143, Administracinių bylų teisenos įstatymas 144(1)(3) and 147, and Commission Guidelines C(2019) 3452Teismai.