A recourse holds a Cyprus public contract only until the interim decision. After that a suspension decides it, and since November 2025 it can cost a guarantee.
The contract went to a competitor, and the bidder thinks the evaluation was wrong. Before any argument about the evaluation, one question decides whether a challenge is worth bringing: will the contracting authority sign with the winner while the challenge is pending?
Signature is the line. Before it, the award can be suspended and, if annulled, decided again. After it, an annulment as a rule leaves the contract standing, and what is left is a claim for money. Cyprus law protects a bidder against an early signature for a shorter time than many assume, and since November 2025 the strongest protection, an interim measure from the Tender Review Authority, can come at a price. This article deals only with holding the contract. The recourse as a whole is set out in our guide to a recourse before the Tender Review Authority.
Filing a recourse holds the contract only for a short time
For a contract within Law 104(I)/2010, the Law forbids signature while the time for a recourse runs, and a recourse to the Tender Review Authority extends that bar only until the Authority has decided on interim measures. Section 22(1) of the Review Procedures in the Field of Public Contracts Law, Law 104(I)/2010, provides that the period for a recourse under section 21(1), and the period of two working days in section 24(1), prevent the conclusion of the contract. Under section 22(2), where a recourse is brought, that period is extended until the date of the Authority's decision on interim measures. The award notification must state the precise standstill period that applies (section 21(3)(b)).
That is the whole of the automatic protection. Once the Authority has ruled on interim measures, only an interim measure prevents signature. Section 23 removes even the standstill in some cases, among them where no prior publication of a contract notice was required, and where the only interested tenderer is the one awarded the contract.
Outside Law 104(I)/2010 there is no standstill at all. For a bidder's recourse, section 3 ties the Law to value: contracts at or above the thresholds of the procurement laws and, below them, works contracts and works and services concessions worth 1,000,000 euro or more. Below that line the award is challenged in the Administrative Court under Article 146 of the Constitution, and filing the recourse suspends nothing: the only automatic suspension in Law 131(I)/2015, section 11A, concerns deportation, return and removal decisions. Our public and administrative law practice covers challenges in both forums.
Asking the Tender Review Authority to suspend
The bidder or candidate who brings the recourse asks for the interim measure on the recourse form itself, and the Authority must decide within five working days of notifying the contracting authority. Section 5(b) empowers it to take interim measures to correct the alleged breach or prevent further damage, including suspending the award procedure, the signature of the contract or the execution of any decision of the contracting authority.
- Within two working days of registration, the Authority notifies the recourse to the contracting authority and, where an interim measure is sought, calls it to state its views within two working days; the bidder is called too (section 24(1)(a)).
- With the form, the bidder files a declaration that it will provide a personal guarantee if the measure is granted. Without it, the request is rejected (section 24(1A)(a)).
- Within five working days of the notification, the Authority decides (section 24(3)). Recourse 18/2026 was filed on 19 June 2026 and decided, after written and oral argument, on 26 June.
A suspension, when granted, runs until the Authority's final decision on the recourse, which section 25(1) requires within forty five calendar days of the end of the hearing. If the recourse fails, the suspension ends with it.
What the Authority weighs
The Authority does not ask who is likely to win. Section 24(2) requires it to weigh the probable consequences of interim measures for all the interests likely to be harmed, and the public interest, and allows it to refuse where the negative consequences outweigh the benefits. A refusal does not prejudice the bidder's other claims.
The Authority's decisions add that it does not examine the merits at this stage, since that would make the hearing of the recourse futile; that contracting authorities must allow, when they launch a tender, for the time a recourse may take; and that this does not make a grant the rule. Where the contracting authority writes that it does not object, the Authority has treated a grant as being in the public interest: in Recourse 2/2026, filed on 9 February 2026, the authority said the next day that it did not object, and the suspension was granted on 11 February.
Where the contracting authority objects, the decision turns on facts that can change. Two decisions on the same tender, for excavation and reinstatement work serving a water network, show how. In Recourse 27/2025, on 27 October 2025, the Authority granted the suspension: the need for speed was evident but not enough on its own, problems on the network were said to be handled temporarily, and the public interest includes the legality of every tender, which reduces the risk of damages and builds trust in the administration. After that recourse succeeded and the contract went to the other bidder, the bidder that had lost it brought Recourse 1/2026. By then, the authority said, the interim contract made during the first suspension had exhausted its financial and time limits, and a new one risked an accusation of artificially splitting the contract. On 9 February 2026 the Authority refused, relying mainly on that, and observed that the bidder's harm could be made good by damages while the authority faced continuing calls for repairs.
In Recourse 18/2026, for running a university's student residences due to open to students on 1 September 2026, the Authority refused for the same reason: the bidder's harm could be compensated in money even if it lost the contract. What weighs, then, is the contracting authority's concrete need and what it has in place meanwhile. What weighs against the bidder is that its own loss can be measured in money.
The personal guarantee, paragraph by paragraph
Since 7 November 2025 a request for an interim measure carries a contingent liability. Law 189(I)/2025 inserted section 24(1A), whose introduction our earlier article reported. Its five paragraphs work as follows.
- The declaration, always. Paragraph (a): a declaration filed with the form that the bidder will provide a personal letter of guarantee if the measure is granted. Without it the request is rejected, whether or not the authority later objects.
- The guarantee, only on objection. Paragraph (b): where the contracting authority objects and the Authority nonetheless grants the measure, the bidder must provide, within five working days of the decision, a personal guarantee in favour of the contracting authority of one per cent of the estimated value of the contract, up to 50,000 euro, or 10,000 euro where the estimated value is not specified. The cap is reached at an estimated value of five million euro.
- Default. Paragraph (c): if the five working days pass without the guarantee being lodged in the form the Authority prescribes, the interim measure is cancelled, the authority may proceed, and the bidder suffers no other consequence. It is the suspension that falls, not the recourse.
- Payment. Paragraph (d): if the contracting authority's act or decision is confirmed, the guarantee becomes payable. Non-payment on the authority's first demand is professional misconduct by the issuer, who is deprived of participation in future public tenders until it complies.
- Return. Paragraph (e): the guarantee is returned within ten working days of a decision annulling the act or decision under section 25, and also if the bidder withdraws the recourse.
Three gaps deserve attention before the declaration is signed. Paragraph (d) makes the guarantee payable on confirmation; it does not make payment depend on the authority showing that the suspension cost it anything. The Law does not say who may issue the guarantee, and leaves its form to the Authority. And the paragraphs deal with two outcomes only: a recourse that ends otherwise, for instance by summary dismissal under section 20(5) or after the authority revokes its own decision under section 20(2), is not addressed.
Nor does the guarantee decide the request. In Recourse 1/2026 the bidder argued that its guarantee and a quick hearing meant the authority would suffer no loss; the Authority refused all the same.
If there is no suspension and the contract is signed
The recourse goes on, but winning it after signature does not, as a rule, undo the contract. Section 25(3) provides that, except where section 27 applies, an annulment after the contract has been concluded does not affect it. A suspension sought after signature has nothing left to hold: in Recourse 30/2025 the authority stated that the contract had been signed on 5 December 2025, four days before the recourse, and the bidder withdrew its request as having no object.
Section 27 is the narrow exception. Among its grounds, a contract signed while a recourse was pending and before the time for the interim decision had run, while interim measures were in force, or in breach of the standstill is declared ineffective, but only if the breach affected the applicant's chances and is combined with a breach of the procurement legislation, and only on a recourse within the periods in section 26. Otherwise the remedy is money: section 33 gives a damages action in the Nicosia District Court after an annulment by the Authority, as our article on damages after annulment explains.
Below the thresholds: an interim order from the Administrative Court
Where the tender is outside the Authority's jurisdiction, or the bidder goes to court instead, the contract can be held only by an interim order of the Administrative Court, granted sparingly. In Elliniki Viomichania Zacharis v. Republic (2010) 3 A.A.D. 71 the Supreme Court, on a revisional appeal heard by five judges, held that the power, which rests on rule 13 of the Supreme Constitutional Court's procedural rules of 1962, is used only where the applicant shows a flagrant illegality or irreparable damage if no order is made. The burden of pleading and proving irreparable damage is the applicant's, the damage must be direct and specific, and monetary loss cannot establish it.
Flagrant illegality must be visible without a trial. In Republic through the Tender Review Authority v. Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Appeal 3/2020, decided on 28 January 2022, the Supreme Court set aside a suspension in a tender case: the illegality must be recognisable on its face, without investigating disputed facts, and the trial court's conclusion, which "may be correct", was not self-evident.
Irreparable damage must be proved, and money is not enough. The tender case is Koinopraxia Poseidon Grand Marina of Paphos v. Cybarco (2009) 3 A.A.D. 513. A bidder whose award the Tender Review Authority had annulled obtained interim orders, the trial judge reasoning that the profit on a long-term contract could not be valued in advance. Five judges of the Supreme Court set them aside. Damage that can be valued in money, even with difficulty, cannot be irreparable however large it is; only damage that cannot be valued and repaired in money, or that has other consequences irreparably affecting the applicant, qualifies. A claim that the contract would otherwise go to another bidder, made only in generalities, was not enough, and the applicant could not "borrow" the Republic's damage to make out its own.
The public interest still counts, and signature closes the door to suspension. In E.G.S. Flooring v. Sewerage Board of Nicosia (1989) 3 A.A.D. 1794 the Court said that even where a recourse is manifestly admissible and well founded, a suspension is generally issued only if the public interest and the operational needs of the administration are not substantially affected. It also held that once the private law contract has been concluded, an application to suspend the award is not available, although the recourse continues. An annulment then reaches the award and not the contract: in Medcon Construction v. Republic (1968) 3 C.L.R. 535 the decision to award was annulled, but the judgment "cannot affect the contract granted as a result of such decision".
The same test governs a recourse against the Authority's own decision under section 32, as Poseidon and the 2022 appeal show, so a bidder whose recourse the Authority dismissed meets the court's test, not the Authority's balance.
What this means in practice
Decide on the day you file, and price the guarantee. The interim measure is requested on the form, with the declaration, and the standstill ends when the Authority rules on it. One per cent, up to 50,000 euro, is called only on objection and grant, and becomes payable if the award is confirmed, whatever the suspension cost the authority. Read the Authority's guarantee form before signing the declaration.
Argue the balance, not the merits. Concrete evidence about the authority's interim arrangements and timetable, and about harm that money cannot repair, carries weight. General statements do not.
Watch the date of signature. A contract signed during the standstill or while a suspension was in force may be declared ineffective, but only on a timely recourse under sections 26 and 27.
Below the thresholds, prepare for the court's test. Flagrant illegality must be obvious on the papers, and loss measurable in money is not irreparable. If no order is made and the contract is signed, the recourse continues and the claim becomes one for damages.
Questions we are asked
Does filing a recourse stop the contracting authority signing the contract?
Only for a time, and only for a contract within Law 104(I)/2010. Section 22 bars signature while the time for a recourse runs, and a recourse to the Tender Review Authority extends the bar until the Authority decides on interim measures. After that, only an interim measure holds the contract. A recourse to the Administrative Court suspends nothing by itself.
How much is the guarantee, and when is it lodged?
It is called only if the contracting authority objects and the Authority still grants the measure. It is one per cent of the estimated value of the contract, up to 50,000 euro, or 10,000 euro where the value is not specified, lodged within five working days of the decision. If it is not lodged, the measure is cancelled and the authority may proceed, with no other consequence for the bidder.
When is the guarantee paid, and when is it returned?
It becomes payable if the Authority confirms the contracting authority's decision. Non-payment on first demand is professional misconduct by the issuer, who is excluded from future public tenders until it complies. It is returned within ten working days of a decision annulling the contracting authority's decision, and also if the bidder withdraws the recourse.
What if the contract is signed before my recourse is decided?
The recourse continues, but under section 25(3) an annulment after signature leaves the contract unaffected, unless a section 27 ground applies, such as signature during the standstill or while an interim measure was in force. Otherwise what remains is a claim for damages.
My tender is below the thresholds. Can the Administrative Court stop the contract?
Only by an interim order, which the court grants sparingly: you must show a flagrant illegality, recognisable without investigating disputed facts, or irreparable damage, which loss measurable in money is not. Even then the public interest can prevail, and the case law holds that once the contract has been signed the award can no longer be suspended.
Sources
- Review Procedures in the Field of Public Contracts Law of 2010, Law 104(I)/2010, consolidated text, sections 2, 3, 5, 20 to 27, 32 and 33, CyLaw
- Review Procedures in the Field of Public Contracts (Amending) Law of 2025, Law 189(I)/2025, section 3, Official Gazette Annex I(I) No. 5060, 7 November 2025, CyLaw
- Establishment and Operation of the Administrative Court Law of 2015, Law 131(I)/2015, consolidated text, section 11A, CyLaw
- Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus, Article 146, CyLaw
- Republic of Cyprus through the Tender Review Authority v. Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Appeal No. 3/2020, Supreme Court of Cyprus, 28 January 2022
- Elliniki Viomichania Zacharis - Kypros Ltd v. Republic (2010) 3 A.A.D. 71, Revisional Appeal 28/2007, Supreme Court of Cyprus, 8 March 2010
- Koinopraxia Poseidon Grand Marina of Paphos and Others v. Cybarco Plc and Others (2009) 3 A.A.D. 513, Revisional Appeal 6/2009, Supreme Court of Cyprus, 17 July 2009
- E.G.S. Flooring Ltd v. Sewerage Board of Nicosia (1989) 3 A.A.D. 1794, Case 21/89, Supreme Court of Cyprus, 29 July 1989
- Medcon Construction and Others v. Republic (1968) 3 C.L.R. 535, Case 68/66, Supreme Court of Cyprus, 7 September 1968
- Tender Review Authority, decision on interim measures, Recourse 27/2025, 27 October 2025, CyLaw
- Tender Review Authority, decision on interim measures, Recourse 30/2025, 11 December 2025, CyLaw
- Tender Review Authority, decision on interim measures, Recourse 1/2026, 9 February 2026, CyLaw
- Tender Review Authority, decision on interim measures, Recourse 2/2026, 11 February 2026, CyLaw
- Tender Review Authority, decision on interim measures, Recourse 18/2026, 26 June 2026, CyLaw
This article is provided for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
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