The Rail Baltica construction tender was won by the GRK Group. The consortium led by the Finnish-rooted company, which includes Merko Ehitus among others, scored 90.11 out of a possible 100 points and can now calmly sharpen their drafting pencils and shovels. They are likely the ones who will build the railway segment from the Ülemiste terminal in Tallinn to Pärnu.

But contracts — essentially the prizes— are awarded to the top two bidders. Therefore, the tender results can only be finalized once it is clear who came in second. In mid-March, Rail Baltic Estonia announced that the second section from Pärnu to Ikla will be built by a consortium led by Bouygues Travaux Publics. The French company enlisted KMG Infra, among others, and received 78.06 points in the tender.

However, third place was not far behind. The consortium led by Leonhard Weiss scored 76.29 points and has filed a complaint with the Public Procurement Disputes Committee.

"In its challenge, the consortium essentially requests that the evaluation committee review the scores awarded to the second- and third-place bidders," said Janar Tükk, portfolio manager at Rail Baltic Estonia.

Major differences in cost of work estimates

Neither the company nor the contracting authority is yet willing to disclose which part of the scoring table is being contested. However, some clues can be inferred from the results.

A maximum of 10 points could be awarded for the project team description and 15 points for the project plan description. These points were distributed at the end of last year. Although the consortium led by Leonhard Weiss performed rather modestly in this category, challenges can no longer be filed regarding these scores.

It is also unlikely that Leonhard Weiss is disputing the remuneration component. In fact, the third-place consortium requested the lowest payment for its work, earning the full 30 points as a result.

When submitting bids, companies had to estimate how much money they would want if tasked with constructing the entire railway line from Tallinn to Ikla. Direct costs will be reimbursed to the companies in any case. The remuneration amount primarily reflects project management costs and the desired profit margin.

Leonhard Weiss requested approximately €64 million, the first-place GRK bid €73 million and the fourth-place consortium — which includes VINCI Construction Geoinfrastructure and TREV-2 Grupp — asked for €78 million.

The highest bid, reaching €104 million, came from the consortium led by Bouygues Travaux Publics, which was announced as the second-place finisher. For that, they received just over 18 points.

Companies knew first round scores before submitting final bids

Janar Tükk said that the remuneration paid to companies does not affect the final construction cost. The plan still calls for €394 million to be spent on the section from Ülemiste to Pärnu and €332 million from Pärnu to Ikla. On top of that, the cost of construction materials will be added.

"We haven't changed the price cap. That means more meaningful work needs to be done within the contract to stay within the target price," Tükk explained. Companies and the contracting authority will need to jointly identify potential cost-saving measures.

He also offered one possible explanation for the wide disparity in the remuneration amounts requested by the bidders. When making their final offers at the end of February, the bidders already knew the results of the first round, which concluded last year. "If they saw that they were trailing behind, they probably lowered their profit margin a bit," Tükk said.

The numbers seem to support that theory. Leonhard Weiss scored 14.49 points in the first round. Bouygues Travaux Publics earned the maximum 25 points. The former later submitted the lowest bid, while the latter asked for the highest amount.

Challenge likely over project management and cooperation capacity

In addition to competing on price, Leonhard Weiss also won the round called "Case Task Resolution," earning the full 15 points. Notably, bidders did not yet know these scores when they submitted their remuneration offers.

This was one of the most intense stages of the entire procurement process. Companies' top specialists had just a few hours to assess the quality of existing railway design documents and explain how they would proceed from there.

"The consortium had to select three of their key personnel, who were taken to a separate room for a set time to work on this specific case task. The solution then had to be clearly written down on paper, which was later evaluated by the members of the selection committee," said Tükk.

All of this happened while the consortium's other specialists were simultaneously working on completely different, much more extensive assignments. A maximum of 30 points could be awarded in the tender for project management and collaboration capability.

To allocate those points, Rail Baltic Estonia organized two workshops for each consortium, during which they had to tackle problems based on real-life scenarios. Tükk explained that the solutions developed during the workshops won't just sit on a shelf gathering dust — once contracts are signed, companies will be able to apply them in practice.

"For example, the bidders had to prepare a timeline for one section of the project, identify certain risks and ensure the schedule was feasible," Tükk said, emphasizing that the actual assignments were far more complex than that description suggests.

Successfully completing them required input from designers, builders and the people managing the entire operation. Even more importantly, they had to maintain ongoing communication with the client representatives in the room. "Because we also have quite a bit of expertise in-house that we want to feed into the assignment," Tükk noted.

In other words, companies had to ensure that the work was carried out in the collaborative, inclusive way Rail Baltic Estonia envisions for the future. A week separated the two workshops, during which bidders could continue refining their solutions.

"Once the workshops were over, the evaluation committee, along with consultants, scored their performance based on the assessment criteria," Tükk explained.

Tükk: We had a ten-member evaluation committee

But in that area, Leonhard Weiss did not perform particularly well. The maximum 30 points for project management and collaboration capability went to the consortium led by GRK, which ultimately won the entire tender.

The French-led Bouygues Travaux Publics received 21.9 points, while Leonhard Weiss earned 16.8 points. Only the consortium led by VINCI Construction Geoinfrastructure, which finished fourth overall, scored lower in this category with 15.9 points.

Janar Tükk noted that points awarded for collaboration capability have been contested in Estonia before. "We were aware of that risk," he said, but added that in his view, the chances of the complaint succeeding are slim.

"We have a ten-member evaluation committee, we involved consultants who monitored the entire process, and in addition, we had an independent observer present," Tükk said.

He emphasized that all bidders were given exactly the same tasks during the workshops. "Everything was identical, down to the detail that if a member of the evaluation committee could only participate for half a day in one workshop, then they also participated for only half a day in all the others," he said.

Evaluation criteria familiar to everyone

The evaluation criteria were made public back in the fall when the public procurement was announced. Rail Baltic Estonia divided the assessment of project management and collaboration capability into three components. Of the maximum 30 points, up to 12 could be awarded to the bidder who created the most value and demonstrated continuous improvement. The scores of the consortium led by GRK Eesti show that the bidder clearly explained how they would add value to the project and their performance on joint tasks was rated as excellent.

Leonhard Weiss, which received a moderate score, was found to have only partially addressed value-creating aspects for the client. According to evaluators, the results of their joint tasks were also only partially presented.

The evaluation subcategories "Manage and implement the project in cooperation with other project stakeholders" and "Build trust and collaborate with other project stakeholders" were similarly structured based on these criteria.

In those categories, Leonhard Weiss received a "good" rating on the evaluation scale, but still fell slightly behind the French-led consortium.

TREV-2 board member: Evaluation method seemed subjective

The largest company in the fourth-place consortium, VINCI Construction Geoinfrastructure, is also backed by French capital. Priit Kuldsaar, a management board member at their Estonian partner TREV-2 Grupp, noted that while the evaluation criteria were clearly described and everything was formally understandable, "the overall evaluation method still felt very subjective."

Kuldsaar pointed out that the consortium had extensive experience with alliance contracting in Western Europe, which differs somewhat from the Finnish model used in Estonia. "As a result, there were differing interpretations, which in turn affected the evaluation," he said, adding that the consortium would have benefited from a consultant with experience in the Finnish system. That observation is reinforced by the maximum score received by the Finnish-rooted GRK.

The fourth-place consortium also debated whether it was worth contesting the outcome of the tender. "But since a large portion of the scoring was based on subjective judgments — such as the assessment of collaboration capability or the case task — it was difficult to find strong enough legal arguments for why we should have received a higher score," Kuldsaar said.

"In such cases, the outcome of a challenge is unpredictable and it may not be worth the time and resources," he added.

Regardless of their final placement, the five-month-long competition was exhausting for all involved. Kuldsaar said their team dedicated hundreds of hours from project managers, specialists and executives to the tender process. Separate consultants were brought in to prepare for the workshops. "In total, the cost of participating reached into the hundreds of thousands of euros," Kuldsaar noted.

Contracts will have to wait for at least six week

Given the high stakes, Leonhard Weiss' decision to challenge the outcome of the tender comes as no surprise. The Public Procurement Disputes Committee has 30 days to issue a decision. Rail Baltic Estonia is allowing for a small buffer on top of that.

"We're accounting for about a month and a half of delay before we can sign the contract," said Tükk. Although the Rail Baltica construction timeline is tight, he said this does not mean that those who received a Tallinn–Warsaw train ticket dated December 2030 last spring need to worry.

"A small delay like this doesn't mean we're pushing back the final deadline," Tükk said.

Of course, the delay could end up being much longer. That depends on the decision of the disputes committee — and whether anyone decides to challenge that ruling in administrative court.

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