Procurement Correction
Procurement correction (hankintaoikaisu) is a self-correction mechanism unique to Finnish procurement law that allows a contracting authority to review and rectify its own procurement decision. It can be initiated by the authority itself or upon request by a concerned party — typically an unsuccessful bidder. Procurement correction is the fastest, simplest, and least expensive remedy available in the Finnish procurement system. While a Market Court appeal can take 6-12 months and cost thousands of euros in legal fees, a procurement correction can resolve an issue in weeks at no cost to the requesting party. For bidders, understanding procurement correction is critical for two reasons: it is your first-line tool for challenging a decision you believe is wrong, and it has important interactions with the Market Court appeal deadline that can trap the unwary. Finnish procurement statistics show that procurement corrections are requested in roughly 2-3% of all procurement decisions, and a meaningful proportion of those requests result in the authority changing its decision — suggesting that genuine errors occur more often than many assume.
Definition
Procurement correction is a legal remedy regulated by Sections 132-135 of the Finnish Public Procurement Act (1397/2016). It allows the contracting authority to review and correct its own procurement decision when the decision is based on an error in applying the law or on an incorrect assessment of the facts. The remedy is available for all procurement decisions — both EU-level and national — and has no minimum threshold. A party concerned (typically an unsuccessful bidder) may file a correction request within 14 days of receiving the procurement decision together with its reasoning and instructions on how to seek a remedy. The authority itself may also initiate a correction on its own motion within 90 days of the original decision. The correction request must specify what error the party claims occurred and what outcome is sought. The contracting authority must process the request and issue a decision. Possible outcomes include: reversing the original decision and making a new procurement decision (e.g., awarding the contract to a different tenderer); annulling the procurement decision entirely and re-evaluating tenders; or rejecting the correction request if no error is found. The authority cannot use procurement correction to retroactively change the procurement conditions — only to correct errors in how the published conditions were applied. Section 133 specifies that correction requires the consent of parties whose position would be weakened by the correction (primarily the original winner), unless the correction is based on a clear and unambiguous error. A correction decision can itself be challenged at the Market Court. Procurement correction is available for both above-threshold and below-threshold procurements, making it a universal remedy in Finnish procurement law.
Practical Example
A medium-sized Finnish engineering company submits a tender for a municipal infrastructure design contract worth EUR 180,000. The award criteria are 60% quality (reference project relevance 30%, team qualifications 30%) and 40% price. The company receives the procurement decision showing it ranked second, losing by 2.3 points. Reviewing the detailed scoring, the company notices that its lead engineer's master's degree in civil engineering was scored as a bachelor's degree in the team qualifications assessment — an apparent factual error that cost 5 points. The company files a hankintaoikaisu within 14 days, attaching a copy of the degree certificate that was included in the original tender. The request clearly identifies the error (incorrect degree classification), the affected criterion (team qualifications), and the requested remedy (re-scoring and new procurement decision). The contracting authority reviews the original tender documents, confirms the scoring error, and issues a corrected decision awarding the contract to the engineering company. The entire process takes three weeks from the correction request to the new decision.
Common Mistake
The most dangerous misunderstanding about procurement correction is its relationship to the Market Court appeal deadline. Filing a procurement correction request does NOT extend, suspend, or restart the 14-day deadline for filing a Market Court appeal. Both deadlines run independently from the same starting point — receipt of the procurement decision. If you file only a correction request and it is rejected after, say, 20 days, you have missed the Market Court deadline and have no further remedy. The safe approach: if the issue is serious enough that you might want to go to Market Court, file both the correction request and the Market Court appeal within the 14-day period. You can always withdraw the Market Court appeal if the correction succeeds. Filing the Market Court appeal as a precaution costs the filing fee (EUR 270) but preserves your rights.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does filing a procurement correction prevent an appeal to the Market Court?
No. The two remedies are entirely independent and can be pursued simultaneously. Section 132 of the Procurement Act explicitly states that a procurement correction request does not affect the right to appeal to the Market Court or the applicable deadlines. Filing a correction request does not suspend, extend, or restart the 14-day Market Court appeal deadline. This is one of the most important practical points in Finnish procurement remedies. If you believe the error is clear and the authority will likely correct it, you might file only the correction request. But if there is any doubt — or if the financial stakes are significant — file both the correction request and the Market Court appeal within the 14-day window. The Market Court appeal can be withdrawn later at no cost beyond the filing fee if the correction resolves the issue.
What is the deadline for requesting a procurement correction?
A party concerned must file the correction request within 14 days of receiving the procurement decision together with its reasoning and instructions for seeking remedies. The day of receipt is not counted — the 14-day period starts the following day. Electronic delivery is considered received on the day the message is available to the recipient in the electronic system. The contracting authority may self-initiate a correction within 90 days of the original decision — a significantly longer window that reflects the authority's broader responsibility to ensure lawful procurement. The 90-day self-correction right is important because it allows the authority to fix errors discovered during contract negotiations, internal audits, or in response to informal feedback. When the authority self-corrects, it must notify all parties whose position is affected and provide a new decision with appeal instructions.
What types of errors can be corrected through procurement correction?
Procurement correction can address errors in applying the published procurement conditions — not errors in the conditions themselves. Typical correctable errors include: mathematical errors in scoring (incorrect calculation of weighted scores); factual errors in evaluating tenders (misreading a reference, overlooking a certification, incorrectly classifying a qualification); failure to apply an exclusion ground that should have been applied; applying a criterion that was not published in the procurement documents; or applying criteria differently to different tenderers. The correction cannot be used to change the award criteria, modify the technical specifications, or alter the suitability requirements retroactively — these would require cancelling and re-running the procurement. If the contracting authority discovers that the procurement documents themselves were fundamentally flawed (e.g., discriminatory requirements), the appropriate remedy is to cancel the procurement entirely, not to use procurement correction.
Related Terms
Market Court Appeal
Learn about Market Court appeals in Finnish public procurement. How to challenge procurement decisions at markkinaoikeus under hankintalaki.
Appeal Period
Understand the appeal period and standstill period in Finnish public procurement. Critical deadlines for challenging procurement decisions.
Tender Evaluation
Learn about the tender evaluation process in Finnish public procurement. How contracting authorities assess and score tenders under hankintalaki.
Market Court
Learn about the Market Court (markkinaoikeus), Finland's specialised court for public procurement disputes. How it works and what it can decide.
Haavi monitors public tenders for you
AI-powered procurement monitoring finds relevant tenders for your company automatically.