How to challenge a tender before the Public Procurement Tribunal

You bid for a tender, submit a competitive offer, meet every requirement, and the body still awards the contract to another supplier in a way that is not…

2026-06-10 · Public tenders

You bid for a tender, submit a competitive offer, meet every requirement, and the body still awards the contract to another supplier in a way that is not properly explained. Or you take part in a process and see irregularities in the specifications before bidding. In Chile there is a formal forum for challenging those situations: the Public Procurement Tribunal. Understanding when and how to use it can be the difference between accepting an unfair result and recovering an opportunity that was rightfully yours.

What the Public Procurement Tribunal is

The Public Procurement Tribunal is a specialised judicial body, created by Ley N.° 19.886 on Public Procurement. Its mission is to hear challenges against unlawful or arbitrary acts or omissions occurring in public procurement procedures with State bodies governed by that law.

It is independent of ChileCompra and of the purchasing bodies: it is a court with specific competence in public procurement, which makes it more specialised than an ordinary civil court for these matters. You can find more information about how it works at chilecompra.cl/tribunal-de-contratacion-publica/.

What can be challenged

A challenge can be brought against any unlawful or arbitrary act or omission occurring between the approval of a tender's specifications and its award, both included. In practical terms, that covers situations such as:

Tender specifications with discriminatory requirements or that artificially favour a specific supplier.
Changing the evaluation criteria after the bids have been received.
An award that does not respect the criteria and scores published in the specifications.
Arbitrary exclusion of a bid that met every requirement.
Unequal application of the admissibility rules between different bidders.

What the Tribunal does not cover is what happens after the formal award: breaches of contract, disputes over payment or disagreements in delivering the service. Those cases are resolved through different routes.

Who can bring the action

The challenge can be brought by any individual or legal entity with a currently engaged interest in the procurement process in question. That includes suppliers who took part in the tender, suppliers who wanted to take part but were excluded, and even potential participants prevented from doing so by the specifications.

The deadline: 10 working days

This is the most critical rule and the one that frustrates most challenges through lack of awareness: the claim must be filed within a strict deadline of 10 working days, counted from when the affected party became aware of the challenged act or omission, or from its publication on the platform.

Ten working days is not long. If the award is published on Mercado Público and you are not monitoring the process, you can lose the deadline without even finding out. Actively monitor the processes you take part in so you can react in time if the award is not what you expected.

Step by step: how to file the challenge

Bringing an action before the Public Procurement Tribunal requires preparation. The claim must contain, at least:

Identification of the challenged act or omission: which specific resolution, publication or decision you are challenging, with the date and the reference to the Mercado Público process.
The facts constituting the unlawfulness or arbitrariness: what the concrete problem consists of and why it breaches the rules or contradicts what was published in the specifications.
The legal or regulatory provisions breached: which articles of Ley N.° 19.886, its Regulations or other applicable rules were infringed.
The concrete requests to the Tribunal: what you want the Tribunal to decide; for example, that the award be set aside and made correctly, or that the specifications be amended.

Since this is a judicial process, it is advisable to have legal advice from a lawyer experienced in public procurement to draft the claim and manage the proceedings.

Before challenging: the administrative complaint

Before going to the Tribunal, there is a prior route: an administrative complaint to the purchasing body itself. Often an error in the evaluation or in applying the criteria can be resolved directly with the body without going to court. The advantage is that it is quicker and free; the disadvantage is that the body may simply confirm its decision.

If you file an administrative complaint, bear in mind that this interrupts the deadline for bringing the judicial action before the Tribunal, as provided in the law. That gives you more time to decide whether to escalate the matter.

What the Tribunal can decide

If the Tribunal upholds the challenge, it can adopt various measures: setting aside the challenged act, ordering the specifications to be amended, taking the process back to an earlier stage or making the award correctly according to the published criteria. It can also order interim measures to suspend the process temporarily while it decides.

In short

The Public Procurement Tribunal exists so that suppliers can challenge irregular conduct in public purchasing processes. The golden rule is the deadline: 10 working days from when you learn of the challenged act. Actively monitor the processes you take part in, document the criteria published in the specifications and, if you spot an irregularity, act fast.

— Mindset & Code. Sources: Ley N.° 19.886 on Public Procurement (Chapter V); ChileCompra — Public Procurement Tribunal; Ley N.° 21.634 (2023 reform). Information current as at 2025-2026. Informational content: it replaces neither professional nor legal advice.