The Central Administrative Court of Contractual Appeals (TACRC) has upheld the appeal filed by Telefónica against its exclusion from Lot 3 of the CORA III contract, the centralized digital services and telecommunications project of the General State Administration, dependent on the Ministry of Finance, to which El País/Cinco Días had access. Telefónica regains the status of definitive awardee of cybersecurity and data center interconnection services, displacing the UTE led by MasOrange.
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The court’s decision represents an administrative turnaround in a tender that has seen three changes of awardee in the last 14 months. The TACRC ruling annuls the previous resolution of the Ministry for Digital Transformation which, on November 29, 2025, declared the tender void after excluding Telefónica’s offer due to defects in the technical solvency of a subcontractor. With this resolution, the process is reverted to the moment before that exclusion, validating the Spanish operator’s economic and technical proposal.
The legal conflict originated from compliance with the Equality Law in the bidders’ supply chain. The contracting committee had initially determined that the UTE formed by Telefónica de España and Telefónica Soluciones incurred a prohibition to contract. The argument was that Govertis, the firm providing technical solvency to the offer, did not have an equality plan duly registered in the official registry.
However, the TACRC establishes in its resolution that Telefónica’s situation differs from that which motivated the previous exclusion of MasOrange in the same lot. According to the court, Govertis’s participation was a second-level subcontract intended to provide a compliance officer (compliance), representing barely 1% of the total contract value. The technical resolution details that the subsidiary Telefónica Cybersecurity & Cloud Tech (TCCT) demonstrated the capacity to assume these functions directly without resorting to the external subcontract, remedying the commitment of resource allocation without altering the essence of the original offer.
The court’s ruling emphasizes that the substitution of this technical profile does not constitute a substantial modification of the offer nor breaches the principles of equality and non-discrimination. “The substitution of the Compliance director allows the commitment of resource allocation to be considered fulfilled,” states the legal text, rejecting the contracting body’s thesis led by Óscar López.
This contract, valued at over 100 million euros in its tender phase, is a critical piece for the State’s security infrastructure. Lot 3 manages the interconnection of data centers and protection against cyberattacks for ministries and linked public agencies. The administrative uncertainty over this lot had forced the Government to approve this May a nine-month extension, through a negotiated procedure without publicity, to the current service providers (Telefónica and Indra), to avoid a gap in security coverage.
The trajectory of this tender began on March 10, 2025. On that date, the UTE composed of MasOrange, TRC, and Mnemo was declared provisional winner by presenting the most competitive economic offer. MasOrange set a price of 55.26 million euros (excluding VAT), compared to the 63.06 million proposed by Telefónica. Although both offers obtained the highest technical score, the difference of almost 8 million euros tipped the balance towards the French-origin group.
The original award to MasOrange was challenged by Telefónica citing that one of the members of that UTE, the company Mnemo, lacked an equality plan at the time of the offer submission. The TARC upheld that appeal on October 4, 2025, which led to MasOrange’s disqualification and the subsequent award proposal to Telefónica, which was the only other bidder in the process. However, the Ministry applied the same strict criterion regarding the equality plan to Telefónica weeks later, resulting in the exclusion that has now been revoked.
The process has been marked by the shareholding context of the companies involved. The Spanish State, through SEPI, recently consolidated a 10% stake in Telefónica’s capital, declaring it a strategic company for national interests. Meanwhile, Orange, which integrates the losing UTE, is in the process of acquiring 100% of MasOrange after reaching agreements with MásMóvil’s financial partners. Orange is 23% owned by the French State.
From a financial perspective, the resolution ends a situation of contractual interim. The CORA III tender specifications seek to optimize public telecommunications spending by aggregating demand from multiple government departments. Telefónica’s definitive victory implies that the Administration will pay a higher price than initially foreseen in MasOrange’s offer but ensures service continuity under the technical parameters validated by the TACRC.
Industry sources indicate that this resolution closes the administrative route, although the affected parties maintain the possibility of taking the case to the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the National Court. For now, the Ministry for Digital Transformation must formalize the contract with Telefónica following the deadlines established in the Public Sector Contracts Law.
Resolution 781/2026 of the TACRC, dated April 30, 2026 but published this Wednesday, highlights the technical complexity of high-level public tenders in Spain, where compliance with social requirements, such as equality plans, has become as decisive a factor as financial solvency or technological capacity.
With this award, Telefónica consolidates its position as the main provider of critical services for the Spanish public sector, managing one of the most sensitive areas of national security in an environment of increasing risk from international cyber threats.
