Corrigendum in a Tender: How Conditions and Dates Change After Publication

The tender you downloaded on the day it was published is not necessarily the tender you will be bidding on. Corrigenda change dates, quantities, specifications and eligibility criteria, and a bid prepared against a superseded document is a bid prepared against the wrong requirements.

What a corrigendum is

A corrigendum is a formal amendment to a published tender, issued by the buyer and notified to all bidders through the portal. It becomes part of the tender document.

Common changes:

• Extension of the bid submission date, the most frequent by far
• Changes to eligibility criteria, often relaxing a threshold after pre-bid representations
• Changes to quantities or the bill of quantities
• Clarifications issued in response to pre-bid queries
• Changes to specifications
• Cancellation of the tender

Why it matters more than it appears to

Three failure modes, all common:

Bidding on superseded conditions. A corrigendum revises the BOQ, you submit rates against the original, and your financial bid does not correspond to what is being procured.

Missing an extension. Less damaging, but firms have stopped work on a bid believing the deadline had passed when it had been extended.

Missing a relaxation. A corrigendum lowers a turnover threshold you failed, and you never find out, because you stopped tracking the tender when you ruled yourself out.

That third one is the expensive one, and it argues for tracking tenders you have declined as well as tenders you are pursuing, at least until they close.

Where corrigenda are published

On the portal that published the tender, against the tender record. E-procurement portals list them alongside the original document, and most notify registered bidders who have downloaded the document.

Most, not all, and notification depends on the portal and on having downloaded the document while logged in. Relying on a notification email is not a system.

The reliable habits:

• Check the tender record before you submit, every time, without exception
• Check again if there is a gap of more than a few days between preparing and submitting
• Track tenders you declined, at least until their original closing date

Avsar re-reads the portal feeds every minute and flags corrigenda against the tenders you are watching, which removes the manual check. See how discovery works.

Reading one properly

A corrigendum is usually short, which encourages skimming. Read it against the original:

1. Which clause changed, by number
2. What the new text says, in full, not just the delta as described
3. Whether the dates moved, including the query deadline and the opening date
4. Whether anything you had already prepared is now wrong

Where a corrigendum revises a BOQ, re-enter the rates against the revised schedule rather than adjusting the old one. Transcription between versions is where errors enter.

Timing and its consequences

Corrigenda are sometimes issued close to the closing date. Where a substantial change is made late, buyers usually extend the closing date, but not always, and not always by enough.

Where a late corrigendum makes a material change without adequate time to respond, that is a legitimate matter to raise with the buyer in writing immediately, asking for an extension. Do it before the closing date, not after the result.

Cancellation by corrigendum

Where the corrigendum cancels the tender, your EMD is refundable and should be claimed in writing rather than waited for. The work is often retendered later, sometimes with revised conditions. See retender and cancellation.

The connection to the pre-bid meeting

Corrigenda are how pre-bid answers become binding. If you raised a query and the answer matters, the question to ask yourself when the corrigendum arrives is whether your answer is actually in it. Where it is not, follow up in writing before the deadline, because an answer given in a meeting and omitted from the corrigendum is an answer that does not exist at evaluation.

See pre-bid meeting questions and how to read a tender document.