This piece explains what the court ruling means for a public transport tender and for the use of interim measures in procurement disputes.
The challenge did not stop the tender
Latvian transport companies Liepājas autobusu parks and NordBus have again failed to halt a large Vilnius municipal tender for passenger bus services. On 7 September, the Lithuanian Court of Appeal left unchanged a decision issued on 23 June by the Panevėžys Regional Court. The lower court had rejected the companies’ request for an interim suspension of the procurement. Their application sought to prevent Vilnius city authorities from signing contracts in three of the tender’s four lots. The appeal ruling therefore leaves the procurement unsuspended on the issue before the courts. The source does not report a final ruling on the tender’s legality, nor does it establish that the municipality or bidders acted unlawfully.
What an interim suspension does
An interim measure is a temporary court intervention used while a procurement dispute is being considered. In this case, the Latvian companies asked the courts to stop the municipality from signing contracts in specified lots before the underlying challenge was resolved. Such an order can preserve the position of the parties and prevent a contract from being concluded while the court examines the dispute, but refusing it is not the same as deciding every issue in the case. The courts’ decisions reported here concern the request for temporary protection. They do not, on the available information, determine whether the tender documents, evaluation or eventual award complied with procurement law.
Why the lot structure matters
The tender is divided into four lots, and the requested restriction covered three of them rather than the entire procurement. Lotting allows a contracting authority to organise a large service requirement into separate parts, which can make participation possible for firms with different capacities and can give the authority flexibility over delivery. It also means a legal challenge may be directed at particular lots or at steps affecting several lots. Here, both the original court and the appeal court declined to impose the requested temporary barrier to contract signing in the three specified lots. The result concerns the timing of contracting, while the source gives no account of the companies’ substantive arguments or of the municipality’s response.
The procurement remains under scrutiny
The ruling is relevant to bidders and contracting authorities because a request to suspend a procurement is a distinct stage from the main legal challenge. A bidder may seek urgent protection where signing a contract could change the practical position before its complaint is resolved; the court must then decide whether that temporary step is justified. An authority, meanwhile, may continue with the process if the requested measure is refused, subject to any other legal restrictions or later decisions. In the Vilnius case, the appeal court did not change the first-instance refusal. The available report provides no indication that contracts have been signed, and no allegation of wrongdoing has been proven.
IN NUMBERS
The decision keeps the Vilnius bus tender moving for now, while leaving any underlying procurement dispute separate from the temporary suspension request.
Reported from 15min.lt, 2026-09-09. The Tender Wire is published by Otnox.
