The Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) handed down its judgment on a reference for a preliminary by a Danish court (Østre Landsret) on whether the principle of equal treatment is to be interpreted as precluding a contracting authority from asking a candidate, after the deadline for applying to take part in a tendering procedure, to provide documents describing that candidate’s situation (e.g. a published balance sheet), when such documents were required under the contract notice, but were not included in that candidate’s application. In the case at hand, some of the candidates had not provided required balance sheets with their applications, but did so after the deadline when requested by the contracting authority. The CJEU concluded that the principle of equal treatment does not preclude the contracting authority from making such a request, when such a document can be objectively shown to pre-date the deadline in question. This applies as long as it is not expressly laid down in the contract documents that failure to provide such documents would result in exclusion from the tender. The CJEU also stated that the request must not unduly favor or disadvantage the candidate(s) to which it is addressed. Source: Judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union C-336/12 - Ministeriet for Forskning, Innovation og Videregående Uddannelser v Manova A/S, 10/10/2013