Latvia’s Procurement Bureau Halts Contract for National Football Stadium Financial Calculations

The Procurement Monitoring Bureau (IUB) has prohibited signing a contract in the procurement by the Latvian National Sports Centre (LNSC) for financial and economic calculations for the construction of a new national football stadium in Riga. The decision followed an examination of a complaint filed by SIA "KPMG Baltija."

KPMG Baltija argued that the contracting authority unjustifiably rejected its bid due to a narrow interpretation of the project manager experience requirement, demanding experience only on the public partner side, which was not stipulated in the tender documents. A second objection concerned the authority's conclusion that the proposed project manager did not meet the requirement for involvement in developing and coordinating financial and economic calculations.

The IUB found both objections justified, stating that the tender documents did not support such narrow interpretations. Consequently, the bureau annulled the LNSC procurement committee’s decision of April 24, which had named SIA "PricewaterhouseCoopers" as the winner, and ordered the contracting authority to rectify the violations within 30 working days by re-evaluating all submitted bids.

The tender was announced in January this year, with a planned contract value of €60,000 and a five-month period for the calculations. Last autumn, the government took note of a ministry report on stadium construction options, initiating a preparatory phase for a potential public-private partnership, but assumed no financial commitments. The report identified the PPP model on state or municipal land as the most promising, noting that the public sector would need to bear part of the risk while the infrastructure development could yield economic benefits.