The contracting authority’s right to prohibit the use of a framework agreement as a reference – lessons from the RHR development procurement dispute

In public procurement practice, the question repeatedly arises whether and under what conditions a framework agreement can be used as a reference for proving qualification. The dispute concerning RHR’s development and maintenance works procurement (286703), which went through all levels of challenge and ended with the Supreme Court refusing to take the case into proceedings (case 3-25-2121 in the administrative and circuit courts, VAKO case 127-25/286703), provides an unequivocal answer to this question: if the contracting authority has expressly excluded reliance on framework agreements in the reference requirement in the procurement documents, then reliance on them is not permitted.

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✨The overview was prepared by Kadri Matteus and Merily Tamm.