Filenews 2 November 2025 - by Charalambos Zakos
The largest percentage of appeals to the Tender Review Authority for public works are rejected, according to data extracted from the Authority's website.
So far, for 2025, the Tender Review Authority has issued decisions on 28 appeals, with most of them being rejected. Specifically, out of a total of 28 appeals, 17 have been rejected, while only five appeals have succeeded, five have been withdrawn and one has been requested for a review.
Something similar seems to have been the case for 2024, where the Tender Review Authority had made a decision on 50 appeals. Of these, 33 had been rejected, 7 had succeeded and 10 were withdrawn.
Those under €1 million
Another important element that is extracted concerns the value of the contracts for which appeals arise. Until recently, there was a ceiling of €500,000 for the right to appeal before the Tender Review Authority, while with the new legislation, the Parliament increased this amount to €1 million.
However, from these data and statistics, it seems that the new law is not going to offer anything substantial, since the appeals that have been submitted to the Tender Review Authority for projects with a value of up to €1 million are minimal.
In particular, according to the rapporteurs of the law proposal, the purpose was to combat the delay in public projects due, as they had mentioned, to appeals by companies that had been submitted to the Tender Review Authority. However, as we mentioned above, the contribution of the new law is not going to bring any substantial change or acceleration of projects, since on the one hand the appeals for projects up to one million are minimal, while on the other hand the problem is mainly observed in large and complex projects of many million euros, which are not covered by the new law.
Redirected and amended
In fact, developments have emerged for the new law in recent days, after its initial vote in the Plenary, which resulted in its referral by the President of the Republic of Cyprus and its last amendment by the Plenary Session of the Parliament.
It is recalled that the law was passed by the Parliament on September 25, 2025 and was referred back by the President on October 16, while on October 30 it was amended.
Under the new rules, the minimum amount of the monetary value of a contract for redress is increased and stricter conditions for interim measures are introduced.
In particular, the threshold for lodging an appeal is increased from €500,000 to €1 million. In addition, the applicant is required to provide a letter of guarantee for the application for an interim measure. The amount of the guarantee will be determined by the Tender Review Authority, which will take into account the predetermined damage clauses provided for in the project contract.
In addition, following the referral of the law by the President of the Republic, the Plenary decided to proceed with amendments, so that the applicant, when requesting the adoption of an interim measure, accompanies the appeal form with a solemn declaration that he will submit a personal letter of guarantee, if the Reviewing Authority decides in favour of the measure. If the guarantee is not submitted, then the request is rejected.
Further arrangements have also been added to enhance clarity. In the event that the contracting authority or the contracting entity submits an objection to the issuance of an interim measure and the Reviewing Authority finally decides to take it, the interested party is invited to submit, within five working days from the decision, a personal guarantee in favour of the contracting authority or entity amounting to 1% of the estimated value of the project, with a maximum amount of €50,000.
In cases where an estimated value of the contract is not specified, the amount of the guarantee is set at €10,000.
Concerns about the new contract law
Concerns had been expressed by legal circles about the new law, with the reputable lawyer, Achilleas Emilianidis, stating to "F" that the proposed law will not only not solve the problem, but may strengthen corruption. As he had argued, the problem is not found in the appeals but in the procedures followed and in the tender documents.
Mr. Emilianidis, at another point in his statements to "F", had commented that the Tender Review Authority receives about 50 appeals a year, a number that cannot be considered to bring about a particular workload. Something that seems to be confirmed by the official data, since on the one hand the number of appeals can be described as manageable and on the other hand the appeals concerning projects up to one million are zero.
