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Failing a knock-out requirement means your tender is not assessed. What the case law says and how to avoid it.
Checked on 15-09-2026
A knock-out criterion is a requirement your tender must meet in any case. If you do not meet it, your tender is not assessed, however good the rest may be. That is not the buyer being arbitrary but a consequence of the principle of equal treatment. The Court of Justice of the EU held in the Storebaelt judgment (1993) that all tenders must comply with the tender specifications; a tender that does not is set aside.
Conversely, an authority may not be lenient either. The Court of Appeal of The Hague called awarding a contract to a tenderer that did not meet a knock-out requirement a manifest disregard of a fundamental procurement principle (Morpho/Dienst Wegverkeer, 2014). A competitor can therefore successfully challenge such an award.
PIANOo distinguishes several kinds of invalid tenders. Irregular: the tender does not meet the requirements, is late, is conditional or rests on prohibited arrangements. Unacceptable: the tenderer is not suitable or the price exceeds the budget. Unsuitable: the tender does not match the need. A tender received after the deadline is late. Attaching conditions to your offer makes it impossible to compare.
Correction after the deadline is limited. An authority may ask for a simple clarification or the correction of an obvious clerical error, but it must not become a new tender. Additions must concern information that objectively existed before the deadline (Court of Justice, SAG 2012 and Manova 2013). Documents requested on pain of exclusion can, as a rule, not be supplied afterwards.
What this means for you: before you start, list every knock-out requirement and every document requested on pain of exclusion, with the evidence for each line and who supplies it. Go through the list again just before submitting, have a colleague review it and submit well before the deadline. If you are unsure whether you meet a requirement, ask about it in the question round instead of guessing.
These articles explain how public tendering works; they are not legal advice. If you are unsure about a specific tender, ask your question through the clarification round or consult a lawyer.
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