ŠKODA Group’s Finnish subsidiary Škoda Transtech has filed an appeal with the country’s Supreme Administrative Court contesting a ruling by the Market Court that confirmed the rolling stock manufacturer’s exclusion from a tender to supply up to 183 LRVs for Helsinki.

Škoda Transtech says the ruling is the result of an incorrect assessment of the technical component of its bid. It has also requested an interim measure to suspend the signing and execution of the contract to supply the LRVs until the Supreme Administrative Court has reached its final decision.

The company filed a formal complaint with the Finnish Market Court in October 2025, after Helsinki Metropolitan Area Transport (PKO) awarded Stadler a contract to supply 63 LRVs, including a 30-year maintenance agreement and options for up to 120 additional vehicles. While the value of the contract was not released, it was estimated to be worth €1.6bn when the tender was launched in October 2023.

The company welcomes the fact that the Market Court has dismissed the allegations that Škoda Transtech had attempted to improperly influence the course of the tender through statements made to the media. The main grounds for the appeal are that the Market Court based its decision confirming Škoda Transtech’s exclusion on a formalistic interpretation of the technical component of the bid.

Škoda Transtech says that this does not reflect either the substance of the bid or the actual technical parameters of its proposed LRV design, which it says are fully in line with the requirements of the tender documentation. The clarification that it provided to PKO during the tender process was legitimate, beneficial to the contracting authority, and did not alter the substance of the bid, according to the company.

“The Market Court assessed the technical part of Škoda Transtech’s bid in a purely formalistic manner, effectively turning our proactive and cooperative approach towards the contracting authority against us as alleged material change of the bid and thereby concluded its non-compliance with the technical requirements of the tender,” says Škoda Group CEO, Petr Novotný.

“This decision deeply concerns us, and we consider it a dangerous precedent,” Novotný continues. “If technically sound and functional solutions can be excluded on the basis of an ambiguous and formalistic interpretation of details and any explanation provided can be considered as material change of the bid, the very fairness of public procurement in Europe is at risk.”

Škoda Transtech also expresses its surprise at how the Market Court overlooked what it alleges to be “the irregularities and ambiguities of the entire tender procedure,” focusing instead on technical details. The company says that the way in which the contracting authority conducted the procurement process raises serious questions about its overall fairness, highlighting material changes to the evaluation criteria during different stages of the process which it says were neither sufficiently reviewed nor taken into account by the Market Court.

“By altering the evaluation criteria just before the final phase of the procurement process the contracting authority de facto redesigned the procurement,” says Zdeněk Sváta, Škoda Transtech board chairman and Škoda Group COO.

“Despite such a surprising turn, the contracting authority refused to extend the deadline for submission of the final bid,” Sváta says. “After submission of the final bids, instead of real evaluation, it rather focused on finding arguments why and how to exclude the domestic participant offering trams manufactured in Finland.”

Škoda Transtech also notes that accepting the Stadler bid is conditional on city councils of Helsinki and Vantaa agreeing to increase the budget allocated to the LRV order. According to the company, this clearly suggests that the price offered by Stadler is higher than the present budget, and therefore also higher than the price offered by Škoda Transtech.

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