Top administrative court upholds EU-fund corrections on Šiauliai tenders

The Lietuvos vyriausiasis administracinis teismas has given contracting authorities a clear warning on how they draft experience requirements. In its 11 November 2026 nutartis Nr. eA-1239-624/2026, a panel of Arūnas Dirvonas, Veslava Ruskan and Milda Vainienė dismissed the appeal of UAB "Šiaulių šviesa"Teismai and left unchanged the Regionų administracinis teismas judgmentTeismai of 3 September 2025. The Inovacijų agentūra decisions of 24 November 2023 — Nr. IT01 and Nr. IT02 — standTeismai, with financial corrections of 10 per cent (€30,712) and 5 per cent (€2,090.37)Teismai.

The dispute concerned the EU-funded project "Šiaulių miesto gatvių apšvietimo sistemos modernizavimas" (Nr. 04.3.1-LVPA-T-116-01-0015). For the street-lighting works (CVP IS Nr. 670927, about €330,000 excluding VAT, six weeks to perform), point 24.2 required bidders to show, over the previous five years, one to three completed street-lighting or electricity-network works contractsTeismai worth at least €99,000 excluding VATTeismai. For the LED luminaire supply (CVP IS Nr. 668116, about €80,000 excluding VAT), point 96 required at least one completed contract linked to outdoor luminaire sales worth at least €30,000 excluding VATTeismai within the previous three yearsTeismai.

The Agentūra held that both caps on the number of reference contracts breached Article 47(1) and (7) and the equality, non-discrimination and proportionality principles of Article 17(1) of the Viešųjų pirkimų įstatymas, plus points 6, 7.3 and 7.4 of the Tiekėjo kvalifikacijos reikalavimų nustatymo metodikaTeismai. The courts agreed.Teismai A contracting authority must set the least competition-restrictive requirements capable of selecting every bidder able to perform the contractTeismai, and any departure from the Metodika must be objectively necessary for the specific subject matterTeismai. The company never explained what would qualitatively change if the works experience were spread over four or five contracts rather than three, or the supply experience over more than one. Meeting the guideline ratio of required experience to contract value (about 0.3 here, against the usual ceiling of 0.7) does not cure a count capTeismai, because the Agency penalised the number restriction, not the value threshold. Point 16 of the Metodika expressly allows proof of the final result under one or several contractsTeismai; the "ne daugiau kaip 3" and "bent vieną" wordings eliminated that optionTeismai.

The correction rates follow the competition actually observed. For the works only one bid arrivedTeismai after ten operators viewed the documents, so the 10 per cent rate appliedTeismai; for the luminaires seven bidders submitted offers and six passed qualification, preserving a minimum level of competition, so the 5 per cent rate appliedTeismai — both under row 11 of table 2.1 of the European Commission guidelines in Decision C(2019) 3452, read with the Projektų administravimo ir finansavimo taisyklėsTeismai. The company's fallback — no correction at all, or cutting the works correction to 5 per cent (€15,356) — failedTeismai: artificially restrictive qualification conditions are not formal or insignificant infringementsTeismai.

The ruling confirms that bid counts do not themselves prove that conditions were lawfulTeismai; the test is whether they were objectively justified and the least restrictive availableTeismai. An infringement under Article 2(36) of Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 needs only a breach of applicable law by an economic operator plus real or potential harm to the Union budgetTeismai, and paying for contracts awarded under unlawfully restrictive conditions could have caused such harmTeismai. Complaints about reasoning, legitimate expectations and the investigation timetable gave no decisive ground to annul the decisions, and the refusal to award the company its litigation costs stands. The nutartis is final and not subject to appealTeismai, adopted under Article 144(1)(1) of the Administracinių bylų teisenos įstatymas. Legal basis: VPĮ Articles 17(1) and 47(1), (7), the Metodika, Regulation (EU) No 1303/2013 and Commission Decision C(2019) 3452.