Challenging a contract award decision: standstill, remedies and legal challenge

Yes, an unsuccessful bidder can challenge a UK public contract award, but only within a short window. Under the Procurement Act 2023, the standstill period is at least eight working days from the award notice's publication, and a court claim must generally start within 30 days of knowing about the problem. Miss both, and your options narrow sharply.

This guide is general information for suppliers, not legal advice. If you are inside the standstill period and think you have grounds to challenge, the practical deadline is measured in days, not weeks, so speak to a solicitor experienced in procurement litigation immediately rather than after reading around the subject.

What is the standstill period?

The standstill period is the gap between a contracting authority telling the market who has won (by publishing the contract award notice) and actually signing the contract. Under section 51 of the Procurement Act 2023, the mandatory standstill period is at least eight working days, starting on the day the contract award notice is published — publication day counts as "working day one." The authority cannot enter into the contract until it has run.

Official guidance confirms bank holidays across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland do not count as working days when you calculate the deadline, so check a calendar rather than counting weeks (GOV.UK, Guidance: Contract Award Notices and Standstill).

A handful of award routes are exempt from the mandatory standstill, including direct awards for extreme urgency, call-offs under an existing framework, dynamic market awards and light-touch contracts (Procurement Act 2023, s.51(3)). Authorities can still choose to run a voluntary standstill on these.

Contracts still running under the older rules follow a similar mechanism under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (the "Alcatel" standstill) — check which regime applies to your competition before relying on either set of deadlines.

What is the assessment summary, and why does it matter before I decide anything?

Before the contract award notice is published — and therefore before the standstill clock starts — every supplier that submitted an assessed tender must receive an assessment summary showing the award criteria, weightings, their own score, and (if unsuccessful) the winning tender's score for comparison (Procurement Regulations 2024, regulation 31, discussed in GOV.UK, Guidance: Assessment Summaries). All suppliers get theirs at the same time.

Read it immediately. It is the evidence base for any challenge, and the only place you can check for a genuine error — a miscounted score, an unevaluated method statement, an inconsistency against the published criteria.

How long do I have to challenge a contract award decision?

Two separate clocks run at once, and they are easy to confuse.

The standstill period (at least eight working days from the contract award notice) is the window before the contract is signed. Issue and notify a claim within it and the contract cannot be signed while the case is live — this is the automatic suspension, covered below.

The limitation period for starting court proceedings under Part 9 of the Act is, separately, 30 days from the day you first knew, or ought to have known, about the circumstances giving rise to the claim (Procurement Act 2023, s.106). The court can extend this if there is good reason, but not beyond three months from that same knowledge date. For claims to set aside a contract that has already been signed, the deadline is the earlier of that 30-day point or six months from the day the contract was entered into or modified (s.106).

In practice this means: if you want the automatic suspension to protect you, you must act inside the eight working days of standstill, not the full 30 days the general limitation period appears to allow.

What is automatic suspension, and how do I trigger it?

Automatic suspension is the single most powerful and time-critical remedy available. Under section 101 of the Procurement Act 2023, if a supplier issues and notifies the contracting authority of a claim before the contract is entered into, the authority must not sign the contract while the claim remains live — automatically, without needing to apply for an injunction. The suspension lasts until the claim is resolved, withdrawn, or a court lifts it.

The authority can apply to court to lift the suspension, and the court decides this the same way it would an interim injunction, weighing the balance of convenience including any overriding public interest in the contract proceeding (Procurement Act 2023, s.102; GOV.UK, Guidance: Remedies). This is precisely why speed matters: suspension only bites if your claim form is issued and the authority notified before the contract is signed — file after signature and it does not apply, whatever the underlying merits of your case.

What remedies are available if I win a challenge?

What a court can order depends on whether the contract has already been signed.

Before signature (pre-contractual remedies, s.103): the court can set aside the flawed decision, order the authority to re-assess tenders or re-run part of the process, and — in principle — order damages instead of or alongside those steps.

After signature (post-contractual remedies, s.104 and s.105): the general position is damages only. A court must set aside a signed contract solely where a specific "set aside condition" is met — broadly, that the authority denied you a proper opportunity to seek a pre-contractual remedy, for example by failing to publish a contract award notice, signing before standstill ended, or signing in breach of an automatic suspension (s.105). Even then, a narrow public-interest exception can preserve the contract.

Damages compensate you for loss suffered because of the breach, which official guidance notes "may also include bid costs or other consequential loss," with the court deciding causation and amount on the facts (GOV.UK, Guidance: Remedies). Once a contract is signed and no set-aside condition is met, damages — not the contract itself — is usually the ceiling of what is achievable.

What does a challenge cost, and where is it heard?

Claims under Part 9 of the Procurement Act 2023 are civil proceedings, brought in the High Court in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, or the Court of Session in Scotland. In practice, procurement claims are typically case-managed in the specialist Technology and Construction Court list within the High Court's Business and Property Courts.

This is full civil litigation, not a low-cost tribunal: you will need solicitors and usually counsel, an interim relief application moves fast and expensively, and the losing party ordinarily pays a share of the winner's costs. Weigh the contract's value and the strength of your assessment summary evidence against the cost of an urgent hearing before committing.

Can I raise a concern without going to court?

Yes, and it is worth doing alongside — never instead of — protecting your legal deadlines. The Public Procurement Review Service (PPRS), run by the Cabinet Office, lets any supplier raise concerns about a specific procurement's conduct (GOV.UK, Public Procurement Review Service: scope and remit).

The PPRS is a compliance channel, not a court: it cannot suspend a signature, set aside an award, or order damages, and using it does not pause the standstill period or the 30-day limitation clock. Since April 2026 the former Procurement Review Unit's functions have been redistributed — supplier complaints continue via the Cabinet Office's Procurement Compliance & Oversight arrangements, while debarment investigation sits with the Government Commercial Agency (GOV.UK, [Withdrawn] Procurement Review Unit). None of this substitutes for issuing a claim if you need the automatic suspension.

Key facts: standstill, deadlines, forum and remedies at a glance

Question	Answer	Source
How long is the standstill period?	At least 8 working days from publication of the contract award notice	Procurement Act 2023, s.51
When must I get my assessment summary?	Before the contract award notice is published, at the same time as all other assessed suppliers	Procurement Regulations 2024, reg. 31; GOV.UK guidance
What deadline protects automatic suspension?	Claim issued and notified before the contract is entered into (practically, within standstill)	Procurement Act 2023, s.101
General limitation period for a claim?	30 days from when you knew, or ought to have known, of the grounds; extendable for good reason up to 3 months	Procurement Act 2023, s.106
Deadline to set aside a signed contract?	Earlier of 30 days' knowledge or 6 months from contract entry/modification	Procurement Act 2023, s.106
Where is a claim heard?	High Court (England, Wales, Northern Ireland) or Court of Session (Scotland); usually the Technology and Construction Court list	Procurement Act 2023, Part 9
What can the court order before signature?	Set aside the decision, order re-assessment or re-running steps, or damages	Procurement Act 2023, s.103
What can the court order after signature?	Damages; set-aside only if a specific set-aside condition is met	Procurement Act 2023, ss.104–105
Non-court complaint route?	Public Procurement Review Service (Cabinet Office) — does not pause any deadline	GOV.UK, PPRS scope and remit

What should I do in the first eight working days after losing a bid?

Move in this order. First, read your assessment summary the day it arrives and check the scores and weightings against the published award criteria — see our guide to how bids are scored for how the marking scheme should work. Second, calendar the standstill deadline precisely, excluding bank holidays, treating the contract award notice's publication date as day one. Third, if the summary reveals a real discrepancy — a miscounted score, an unassessed section, marking against unpublished criteria — get procurement litigation advice immediately; the eight-working-day window, not the 30-day limitation period, is what actually protects your ability to stop the contract being signed. Fourth, if the issue is more about poor practice than a case worth litigating, use the Public Procurement Review Service in parallel, knowing it will not itself pause anything.

Losing a bid is common and rarely worth a legal challenge; a flawed process that cost you a contract you would otherwise have won is a different matter, and the Procurement Act 2023 gives suppliers a real, time-limited route to do something about it. The window is short by design — treat the assessment summary as the trigger to decide, fast, which kind of loss this is.