To a tender for parking violation enforcement systems three bidders filed offers, two of which met the threshold conditions, and was held the winner, when the municipality, the publisher of the tender, contended that it interprets the threshold conditions in a broad manner in order to allow as many offers as possible and to prevent a situation where only one proposal remains after applying the threshold conditions.
The Court accepted the petition and held that strict adherence to the threshold conditions of the tender is required in order to maintain the equality between bidders. When there are several possible interpretations of the threshold conditions, an interpretation that enables the bids of the participants in the tender should be preferred over an interpretation that disqualifies them, but the interpretation must be such that a reasonable bidder could have understood at the time the bids were submitted. An intent to increase the number of bidders cannot enable the retroactive flexibility of threshold conditions and the acceptance of proposals that should have otherwise been disqualified as this violates the principle of equality.