Why you need an expe­ri­enced legal expert

Why the prepa­ra­tion of the pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure is so impor­tant

Pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures come with a lot of  pre­con­di­tions, not only in fac­tu­al but also in legal terms. If you miss the mark here, you put your project at risk. Mis­takes in the con­tract design catch up with the con­tract­ing author­i­ty in the exe­cu­tion phase. Improp­er­ly draft­ed award doc­u­ments already cause prob­lems dur­ing the pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure, but at the lat­est dur­ing audit­ing by audi­tors or oth­er audit­ing author­i­ties or even before the Pro­cure­ment Cham­ber.

The types of pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures

Before ini­ti­at­ing a pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure, it is always nec­es­sary to clar­i­fy which pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure type is rel­e­vant. This most­ly depends on the type of ser­vice and the order val­ue. How­ev­er, an excep­tion­al cir­cum­stance may also be rel­e­vant, accord­ing to which you may con­duct a less com­pet­i­tive, faster pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure or even award the con­tract direct­ly. In order to clar­i­fy these issues with legal cer­tain­ty, knowl­edge of the rel­e­vant pro­vi­sions of pro­cure­ment law and case law is required. Hence it is advis­able to con­sult a spe­cial­ist lawyer for pub­lic pro­cure­ment law. We are hap­py to be of assis­tance.

The base of your pro­cure­ment

When think­ing about the right type of pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure, it often becomes appar­ent that dif­fer­ent trades are to be pro­cured. And so what at first glance appears to be a sim­ple pur­chas­ing pro­ce­dure turns into a cas­cade of suc­ces­sive and par­al­lel pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures, with which entire­ly dif­fer­ent ser­vice providers are approached. How the base of your pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure can be done in a mean­ing­ful way and how your pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures are to be relat­ed to each oth­er, is a ques­tion best clar­i­fied by a spe­cial­ist lawyer. Feel free to con­sult us at any time.

Joint con­tracts — yes or no?

Some­times pro­cure­ment expe­ri­ence advis­es pre­cise­ly not to divide by lots, but to award a joint con­tract. We are think­ing of gen­er­al plan­ners, total con­trac­tors and gen­er­al con­trac­tors. What sounds good, how­ev­er, is often enough con­trary to pro­cure­ment law. You should have an expe­ri­enced law firm for pub­lic pro­cure­ment law check whether a joint con­tract can be made by way of excep­tion.

The cross-lot order val­ue deter­mi­na­tion

When set­ting up your pro­cure­ment and form spe­cial­ty or area lots, how do you actu­al­ly deter­mine the con­tract val­ue? Lot-sharp or lot-span­ning? Since a cor­rect and up-to-date con­tract val­ue deter­mi­na­tion is manda­to­ry to ini­ti­ate a pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure, you must also deal with it. The best thing to do is to let us help you with this.

Self-dec­la­ra­tions, con­tract per­for­mance con­di­tions, award cri­te­ria — and what else?

Prepa­ra­tion of the con­tract award includes, among oth­er things, the prepa­ra­tion of rel­e­vant self-dec­la­ra­tions, the def­i­n­i­tion of ver­i­fi­able con­tract per­for­mance con­di­tions, the deter­mi­na­tion of legal­ly com­pli­ant suit­abil­i­ty and award cri­te­ria and, of course, the legal review of the per­for­mance spec­i­fi­ca­tion, which is the heart of every con­tract award. Don’t leave any­thing to chance here, but ask for spe­cial­ist legal advice.

Rely on legal­ly sound con­tracts

Inef­fec­tive claus­es lead to con­sid­er­able legal uncer­tain­ty and oblig­a­tions with seri­ous con­se­quences. As a con­tract­ing author­i­ty, you there­fore ben­e­fit from mod­ern and at the same time tai­lor-made con­tracts that har­mo­nize cur­rent legal require­ments with indi­vid­ual needs. Even if you are oblig­ed to apply mod­el con­tracts (e.g. EVB IT), it depends on their design in detail. Our experts will be hap­py to help you with the draft­ing of your con­tract.

Notice or invi­ta­tion to bid?

In fact, only a small pro­por­tion of pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures are ini­ti­at­ed by a con­tract notice, even in the Offi­cial Jour­nal of the Euro­pean Union. Most pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures are start­ed via an invi­ta­tion to bid. As a spe­cial­ized law firm, we will be hap­py to advise you on which approach you should take, what the announce­ment should con­tain and which for­mu­la­tions are appro­pri­ate in the invi­ta­tion to ten­der. Do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us.

Bid­der ques­tions — and some­times rep­ri­mands

Dur­ing a pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure, ten­der­ers ver often have ques­tions. These ques­tions are use­ful. Indeed, they draw the atten­tion of the con­tract­ing author­i­ty to gaps and ambi­gu­i­ties. Ten­der­er ques­tions must be answered in a time­ly man­ner and — in prin­ci­ple — to all inter­est­ed par­ties. So the answer is what mat­ters. If you are not sure about this, please con­tact us in con­fi­dence. Even more so if a ten­der­er does not mere­ly ask, but objects to your spec­i­fi­ca­tions on grounds of pro­cure­ment law.

The open­ing of ten­ders and the for­mal exam­i­na­tion

Requests to par­tic­i­pate and bids must be prop­er­ly opened and stored. In addi­tion, this must be doc­u­ment­ed in a com­pre­hen­si­ble man­ner. You can find out how best to do all this by talk­ing to us — if you don’t want us to take over these tasks for you straight away. The open­ing process is usu­al­ly fol­lowed by a for­mal check. Are all doc­u­ments avail­able? Has the offer been received in due form and time? Has the bid­der mod­i­fied the ten­der doc­u­ments? This is a series of pur­pose­ful, sen­si­ble audit points, which we will work through for you one by one if you instruct us to do so.

Pre­sen­ta­tions, test­ing and nego­ti­a­tions

Nego­ti­a­tions are per­mit­ted in some types of pro­ceed­ings and not in oth­ers. Some­times nego­ti­a­tions, although per­mis­si­ble, are super­flu­ous. Then again, the pub­lic client wants cer­tain bid con­tents to be pre­sent­ed to him ver­bal­ly. Or that he can check them in the award pro­ce­dure, because paper, as we all know, is patient. We know the legal basis and case law regard­ing under what con­di­tions and in what form pre­sen­ta­tion, nego­ti­a­tion and test­ing can take place. Turn to us with con­fi­dence, and we will guide you through these waters as well.

The prepa­ra­tion of the award and the con­clu­sion of the con­tract — or the can­cel­la­tion of the pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure

Pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures end in two ways. Either by accep­tance of the bid, i.e. by con­clu­sion of the con­tract, or by can­cel­la­tion. In both cas­es, a wide range of infor­ma­tion and for­mal require­ments must be observed. The draft con­tract announced in the award pro­ce­dure must also be adapt­ed to the win­ning bid­der. So leave noth­ing to chance here and ask us as your pro­cure­ment and con­tract law advi­sors. Han­dling pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures as an exter­nal pro­cure­ment agency — our offer for you: we are hap­py to accom­pa­ny your pro­cure­ment as a con­sul­tant in the back­ground. So if you would like to take the numer­ous mea­sures in the pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure your­self, either to a large extent or only selec­tive­ly, this is no prob­lem for us. As a spe­cial ser­vice, how­ev­er, we offer you some­thing more: the com­plete han­dling of your pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure. Admit­ted­ly, you will still have to make all the key deci­sions your­self. After all, you are the con­tract­ing author­i­ty, and we are only your advi­sors. But with this ser­vice, we don’t just take care of the legal prepa­ra­tion of the essen­tial deci­sions for you. Rather, we take over the entire admin­is­tra­tive han­dling of the pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure, so that your resources are bur­dened as lit­tle as pos­si­ble.

Why you should seek the help of a spe­cial­ist lawyer in case of review pro­ceed­ings

Award review pro­ceed­ings do not occur all that often. There are around 1,000 per year in Ger­many. Mea­sured against the vol­ume of con­tracts award­ed, this is rather low. This makes it all the more annoy­ing when a con­tract­ing author­i­ty “catch­es” a review pro­ceed­ing. The aim should then be to end the review pro­ceed­ings as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, either by win­ning the case or by pro­vid­ing a swift and com­pre­hen­sive rem­e­dy. This is because dur­ing the review pro­ceecings, the con­tract may not be award­ed and the award pro­ceed­ings may not be ter­mi­nat­ed. This is also referred to as the block­ing effect of the review pro­ceed­ings. Our law firm for pub­lic pro­cure­ment law can help you to dis­solve this block­ing effect as quick­ly as pos­si­ble and to keep your sched­ule as tight as pos­si­ble.

It starts with the rep­ri­mand

The bid­der seek­ing review must first post an appli­ca­tion. With­out an appli­ca­tion, the request for review is usu­al­ly already inad­mis­si­ble. So if you as a con­tract­ing author­i­ty receive a rep­ri­mand, be pre­pared for review pro­ceed­ings to be ini­ti­at­ed. We at abante Recht­san­wälte have some expe­ri­ence in dis­suad­ing bid­ders from ini­ti­at­ing review pro­ceed­ings, for exam­ple by point­ing out the unsuc­cess­ful­ness of their objec­tions, the cost risks, etc. We would be pleased to help you. You are wel­come to use our expe­ri­ence for your pro­cure­ment as well.

The inspec­tion of files before the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment Cham­ber

Once the request for review has been filed, the bid­der usu­al­ly sub­mits a request for inspec­tion of files. But even inde­pen­dent­ly of this, the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment Cham­ber wants to know what the request­ing bid­der is con­cerned with — and requests the award file from you. The dead­line for hand­ing over the award file is reg­u­lar­ly extreme­ly short. Some­times it is only 1 or 2 days. Do you know exact­ly what has to be part of the award file and what you there­fore have to hand over to the award­ing cham­ber? We do. There­fore, do not hes­i­tate and just ask us.

The review pro­ceed­ings as sum­ma­ry pro­ceed­ings

The pub­lic pro­cure­ment tri­bunals are required to con­clude the review pro­ceed­ings in five weeks. This is not always suc­cess­ful. How­ev­er, this short deci­sion dead­line makes it clear that things can and should move quick­ly. This also leads to par­tic­u­lar time pres­sure for the par­ties involved in the pro­ceed­ings, not least the con­tract­ing author­i­ty. Because it has to place its argu­ment very quick­ly if it wants to be heard. But if you are not sure whether you will be able to present all the points favor­able to you in a con­vinc­ing man­ner with­in this short time, then sim­ply con­tact us. We have expe­ri­ence from a three-dig­it num­ber of review pro­ceed­ings. Short dead­lines are our busi­ness.

Pro­ce­dur­al requests, cur­ing of doc­u­men­ta­tion errors, rep­e­ti­tion of pro­ce­dur­al steps.

Not every review pro­ceed­ings can be avoid­ed or ter­mi­nat­ed quick­ly. Some­times the con­tract­ing author­i­ty has to appeal to the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment Tri­bunal to allow ear­ly action. Now and then, pro­ce­dur­al steps should sim­ply be repeat­ed because they were not prop­er­ly doc­u­ment­ed or did not take place at all. No mat­ter what it is: we know the pro­ce­dur­al law and all rea­son­able options for action and will exhaust them very quick­ly togeth­er with you.

What does com­pen­sa­tion for dam­ages have to do with pro­cure­ment errors?

A lot. Pub­lic con­tract­ing author­i­ties may be liable to pay dam­ages to bid­ders if they com­mit pro­cure­ment errors. How­ev­er, by no means does every award error lead to an oblig­a­tion to pay dam­ages. On the oth­er hand, there are cer­tain errors that are bet­ter not made. This is because they can even lead to a claim for com­pen­sa­tion for lost prof­it.

The can­cel­la­tion of the pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure as a typ­i­cal case of dam­ages in pub­lic pro­cure­ment law

If the con­tract­ing author­i­ty can­cels the pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure, the tenderer’s pre­vi­ous efforts were usu­al­ly use­less. The ten­der­er has wast­ed work­ing time by par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure. He may also have called in exter­nal con­sul­tants in order to sub­mit the most eco­nom­i­cal bid pos­si­ble, and these con­sul­tants have cost him a lot of mon­ey. Whether or not you, as the pub­lic con­tract­ing author­i­ty, are now oblig­ed to pay dam­ages is best clar­i­fied togeth­er with us as your spe­cial­ist law firm for pub­lic pro­cure­ment law. Please call us before the can­cel­la­tion and not after­wards.

The award to the wrong per­son as anoth­er typ­i­cal case of dam­ages

Please imag­ine the fol­low­ing case: You exclude the first-placed can­di­date because he has — alleged­ly — com­mit­ted a for­mal error. You then award the con­tract to the sec­ond-place can­di­date. Noth­ing hap­pens for two years; you stop think­ing about this pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure a long time ago. But then you receive a let­ter from the first-place can­di­date demand­ing com­pen­sa­tion for lost prof­it and the con­tri­bu­tion to gen­er­al busi­ness costs. Rea­son: The exclu­sion of his bid was unjus­ti­fied, so you should have award­ed the con­tract to him — and not to the run­ner-up at the time. If this exam­ple case has nev­er hap­pened to you, be glad. Many con­tract­ing author­i­ties know it all too well. Pro­tect your­self against it and ask a spe­cial­ist attor­ney for pub­lic pro­cure­ment law from our law firm in crit­i­cal sit­u­a­tions of the award pro­ce­dure, for exam­ple if you have to exclude the first-placed can­di­date. We will also be hap­py to defend you against unfound­ed claims for dam­ages.

The avoid­ance of claims for dam­ages as pro­cure­ment com­pli­ance

Your goal as a con­tract­ing author­i­ty should be to avoid claims for dam­ages at all costs. After all, pub­lic funds are scarce and you have noth­ing to give away. To ensure that you suc­ceed, we will be hap­py to help you estab­lish con­tract award com­pli­ance. We will show you in detail in which cas­es you have to expect an increased lia­bil­i­ty risk and how you can min­i­mize this risk. Feel free to give us a call and we’ll talk about it.

Con­tract exe­cu­tion begins with the award­ing of the con­tract

The award of the con­tract not only marks the end of the pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure. It is also the con­clu­sion of the con­tract. The con­clu­sion of the con­tract gives rise to mutu­al rights and oblig­a­tions. The ten­der­er becomes the con­trac­tor — and now often “dis­cov­ers” for the first time that he is hin­dered in the exe­cu­tion of his ser­vices, that meth­ods of exe­cu­tion envis­aged by the con­tract­ing author­i­ty are alleged­ly impos­si­ble or that he needs var­i­ous sup­ple­men­tary orders in order to bring about the desired suc­cess of the ser­vice. Since con­tract­ing author­i­ties do not spend their own mon­ey, they are always well advised to close­ly exam­ine the alleged claims of their con­trac­tors. This some­times requires spe­cial­ist legal exper­tise. You are wel­come to con­tact us.

The sup­ple­men­tary offer

Not only in the con­struc­tion sec­tor, but also in the case of sup­plies and ser­vices, there are changes in per­for­mance and addi­tion­al ser­vices that become nec­es­sary. Agree­ment must then be reached with the con­trac­tor as to whether and, if so, what remu­ner­a­tion is to be pro­vid­ed for this. Some pub­lic-sec­tor clients act com­plete­ly inde­pen­dent­ly, while oth­ers call on the ser­vices of exter­nal con­sul­tants. Every case of sup­ple­men­tary work rais­es legal ques­tions. Has the alleged­ly addi­tion­al ser­vice not in fact already been com­mis­sioned? On what con­trac­tu­al basis is the remu­ner­a­tion to be adjust­ed if the change in per­for­mance is not asso­ci­at­ed with any appar­ent addi­tion­al expen­di­ture for the con­trac­tor? It is best to dis­cuss these ques­tions with us as your law firm spe­cial­iz­ing in the entire life cycle of pub­lic con­tracts.

The obstruc­tion and con­cern notice

Among ten­der­ers, the prin­ci­ple applies that it is bet­ter to send one too many obstruc­tion and con­cern notices to the con­tract­ing author­i­ty than one too few. For the con­tract­ing author­i­ty, which has to make bud­getary pro­vi­sions and imple­ment its project accord­ing to sched­ule, obstruc­tion and con­cern reports are often enough a bless­ing. They give them an impres­sion of where things are going wrong, with­out the project man­age­ment, which may be exter­nal, being able to con­ceal or dis­guise this. How­ev­er, obstruc­tion and con­cern reports also lead to legal pres­sure to act. They can, for exam­ple, make it nec­es­sary to exert greater influ­ence on sub­con­trac­tors. What exact­ly is rec­om­mend­ed from a legal point of view can be clar­i­fied with our lawyers. We will give you a pre­cise idea of what mea­sures need to be tak­en and vis-à-vis whom.

The defect case

Defects some­times occur with­in the war­ran­ty peri­od. Or the defects are so sig­nif­i­cant that they pre­vent accep­tance. If there are defects, the con­tract­ing author­i­ty must observe and set dead­lines and may even have to issue for­mal dec­la­ra­tions. Some­times he even has to ter­mi­nate the con­tract for good cause if the con­trac­tor fails to rem­e­dy the defects, for exam­ple, dur­ing the ongo­ing project. To ensure that you do not lose any rights here or com­mit any for­mal or dead­line errors, you must pro­ceed in a struc­tured and planned man­ner and observe the case law and con­trac­tu­al require­ments. You should not leave this to your project man­ag­er alone, but should call on us as a spe­cial­ist law firm if nec­es­sary.

Not just in-house con­tracts

Are you a con­tract­ing author­i­ty at all? We glad­ly clar­i­fy this for you. And do you real­ly have to put every order out to ten­der? That is often doubt­ful. In-house ten­ders, for exam­ple, are not sub­ject to pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures. Accord­ing­ly, a con­tract­ing author­i­ty may award a pub­lic con­tract to a legal enti­ty con­trolled by it with­out first putting it out to ten­der. As lawyers spe­cial­iz­ing in pub­lic pro­cure­ment law, we con­tin­u­ous­ly check your in-house capa­bil­i­ty for you and also cre­ate sen­si­ble in-house rela­tion­ships in your com­pa­ny for you.
Orga­ni­za­tion­al con­sult­ing, how­ev­er, is by no means lim­it­ed to the draft­ing of award-free in-house con­tracts and in-house exchange agree­ments, which often enough also have to be assessed from the point of view of EU state aid law. This is because con­tract­ing author­i­ties are some­times only inter­est­ed in coop­er­at­ing on a selec­tive basis with­out award­ing con­tracts. For exam­ple, they would like to pro­vide each oth­er with a cov­et­ed source code — at a frac­tion of the price that would have to be paid on the mar­ket. Occa­sion­al­ly, pub­lic con­tracts also have to be trans­ferred to oth­er legal enti­ties, with­out the need for a new call for ten­ders. All these and relat­ed legal issues are part of the orga­ni­za­tion­al advice on pub­lic pro­cure­ment law in which we spe­cial­ize as a law firm spe­cial­iz­ing in pub­lic pro­cure­ment law. So con­tact us with con­fi­dence if you rec­og­nize your­self and your chal­lenges.

Con­tract­ing com­mu­ni­ties and cen­tral con­tract­ing author­i­ties

If sev­er­al con­tract­ing author­i­ties join forces, this may ini­tial­ly serve the pur­pose of joint­ly car­ry­ing out a spe­cif­ic pro­cure­ment. Even at this stage, how­ev­er, a wide vari­ety of ques­tions arise, such as who is the con­trac­tu­al part­ner and who is mere­ly the par­ty autho­rized to call for bids, who is to be the body con­duct­ing the pro­ceed­ings in the award pro­ceed­ings, who is to par­tic­i­pate in the award pro­ceed­ings and in what way, and, above all, who is to be involved in the deci­sion-mak­ing process, who is to receive which fund­ing and bear which costs, etc. Some­times, how­ev­er, the coop­er­a­tion is also geared toward con­ti­nu­ity. In this case, for exam­ple, it is a ques­tion of set­ting up a joint cen­tral pro­cure­ment office. No mat­ter what you intend to do: We know our way around it. From joint pur­chas­ing guide­lines to draft­ing coop­er­a­tion agree­ments, you are wel­come to con­tact us at any time.

Non-pro­cure­ment coop­er­a­tion of pub­lic enti­ties

Con­tract­ing author­i­ties coop­er­ate with oth­er con­tract­ing author­i­ties, they com­mis­sion their sub­sidiaries or are com­mis­sioned by these sub­sidiaries, the sub­sidiaries in turn com­mis­sion their sis­ters and the lat­ter com­mis­sion the sec­ond-tier sub­sidiaries, and so on. In this way, a com­pli­cat­ed net­work of exchange-con­trac­tu­al and com­pa­ny-con­trac­tu­al rela­tion­ships is cre­at­ed. It is not uncom­mon for con­sid­er­a­tions of tax law to play a role in addi­tion to those of con­tract­ing law, grant law and com­pa­ny law, for exam­ple with regard to sales tax uni­ty or the right to deduct input tax. At abante, we are not only famil­iar with the rea­sons for these coop­er­a­tions, but above all with the case law on pub­lic pro­cure­ment, sub­si­dies and grants and the legal require­ments. Togeth­er with your tax advi­sors, we can there­fore cre­ate an effec­tive orga­ni­za­tion­al solu­tion for you — with a sense of pro­por­tion and in strict com­pli­ance with your eco­nom­ic needs.

Award — and then re-ten­der every time?

In the course of a joint project, the need for changes and exten­sions occa­sion­al­ly aris­es. From the point of view of pro­cure­ment law, the ques­tion then aris­es each time as to whether the con­tract amend­ment must be put out to ten­der or whether it does not even jus­ti­fy the oblig­a­tion to put the entire con­tract out to ten­der again. These ques­tions are very impor­tant. Sim­ply award­ing a con­tract amend­ment that is sub­ject to pro­cure­ment is an unlaw­ful de fac­to award and thus the most seri­ous pro­cure­ment vio­la­tion that a con­tract­ing author­i­ty can com­mit. To avoid this at all costs, it is best to con­tact one of our spe­cial­ist lawyers for pub­lic pro­cure­ment law.

Sig­nif­i­cant changes to the con­tract must be put out to ten­der

The prin­ci­ple is sim­ple: mate­r­i­al changes to the con­tract must be writ­ten out. There­fore, the dis­pute main­ly revolves around the ques­tion of when a con­tract amend­ment is sig­nif­i­cant and when it is not sig­nif­i­cant. At one time, this was answered sole­ly on the basis of ECJ case law (e.g., Pres­se­text deci­sion). ECJ case law is still sig­nif­i­cant today, and your pro­cure­ment law coun­sel should be famil­iar with it accord­ing­ly. How­ev­er, there are now detailed statu­to­ry reg­u­la­tions in Ger­many — and more and more Ger­man case law from the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment Tri­bunals and High­er Region­al Courts. All this does not exact­ly make it eas­i­er to assess whether a con­tract amend­ment is still imma­te­r­i­al. But it makes it all the more excit­ing for the spe­cial­ized lawyers in our firm, whose dai­ly bread includes assess­ing the free­dom to ten­der of con­tract amend­ments.

Con­trac­tu­al changes can be qual­i­ta­tive or quan­ti­ta­tive in nature

Parts of the case law dif­fer­en­ti­ate accord­ing to whether the con­trac­tu­al change is of a quan­ti­ta­tive or qual­i­ta­tive nature. This also makes sense. Because in the case of a pure­ly quan­ti­ta­tive change, the law pro­vides rea­son­ably clear rules. In this case, the user of the law must keep in mind the rel­e­vant EU thresh­old val­ue as the upper lim­it and research the exact net con­tract val­ue. The assess­ment of qual­i­ta­tive con­tract adjust­ments, on the oth­er hand, is more com­plex. Here, it is reg­u­lar­ly nec­es­sary to make a hypo­thet­i­cal assess­ment, name­ly whether this change, if it had been known from the out­set, would have result­ed in a dif­fer­ent award pro­ce­dure and, above all, a dif­fer­ent field of bid­ders. All these are not easy ques­tions, so that a con­tract­ing author­i­ty is well advised to take pre­cau­tions. And to do so by con­sult­ing a law firm for pub­lic pro­cure­ment law that knows the pit­falls of the case law very well — like abante Attor­neys at Law.

Sup­ple­men­tary con­tract and announce­ment

Even con­tract adjust­ments that are not sub­ject to pro­cure­ment law must be prop­er­ly doc­u­ment­ed and imple­ment­ed. This requires, in addi­tion to a note doc­u­ment­ing the free­dom from award in an auditable man­ner, a sup­ple­men­tary order and pos­si­bly also a pos­si­bly even Europe-wide announce­ment. Some­times it is even advis­able to make two announce­ments, one before the planned change, announc­ing the con­vic­tion that this con­tract change is con­tract-free, and anoth­er announce­ment fol­low­ing the con­tract change. Again, don’t go wrong, and con­fi­dent­ly turn to us as your spe­cial­ized pro­cure­ment law firm — before the con­tract mod­i­fi­ca­tion, not after.

We con­duct basic train­ing

Pub­lic pro­cure­ment law is divid­ed into dif­fer­ent pro­ce­dur­al reg­u­la­tions, some of which have sim­i­lar and some dif­fer­ent rules for the design of a pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure. We train your pro­cure­ment office, your demand car­ri­ers and your legal depart­ment in the appli­ca­tion of these pro­ce­dur­al reg­u­la­tions. This includes the pre­sen­ta­tion of the areas of appli­ca­tion, the types of pro­ce­dure and the pro­ce­dure specifics and infor­ma­tion oblig­a­tions. A sen­si­ble offer for the begin­ner. You can also book in-house train­ing cours­es with us on the basics of pub­lic pro­cure­ment law, such as the scope of appli­ca­tion of the law on the award of con­tracts at the upper thresh­old or the con­cept of the con­tract­ing author­i­ty. This is of par­tic­u­lar inter­est to audit author­i­ties and courts of audi­tors, but also to legal advi­sors who occa­sion­al­ly have to answer ques­tions of a more fun­da­men­tal nature, but who do not have to han­dle pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures. Just ask us what we have in stock for you. We find togeth­er.

Prob­lem ori­ent­ed train­ings

Pure knowl­edge trans­fer is no longer appro­pri­ate in voca­tion­al edu­ca­tion. What is need­ed is appli­ca­tion knowl­edge. From our point of view, this means one thing above all: train­ing. Togeth­er with your HR depart­ment, if it is respon­si­ble for train­ing issues, or with your exter­nal ser­vice provider, we devel­op a port­fo­lio of appli­ca­tion-ori­ent­ed train­ing cours­es for you. This can be a case study that is solved under the guid­ance of one of our spe­cial­ist lawyers for pub­lic pro­cure­ment law in a 1‑day work­shop. Or a ques­tion-and-answer game com­pris­ing more than 100 sam­ple cas­es that increas­es the class­room knowl­edge of your con­tract­ing experts. We would also be hap­py to update this train­ing for you and your employ­ees or store it per­ma­nent­ly as a video course, so that not only those who work for you here today ben­e­fit from it. But also all future gen­er­a­tions of employ­ees. Just con­tact us.

Immer­sion train­ing? Glad­ly!

Cer­tain top­ics require more in-depth cov­er­age. For exam­ple, if pub­lic-sec­tor clients reg­u­lar­ly award frame­work agree­ments, it is advis­able to focus on the award­ing of frame­work agree­ments for a dura­tion of approx­i­mate­ly four to six hours. Units involved in the pro­cure­ment of infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy ser­vices, on the oth­er hand, might be inter­est­ed in inten­sive train­ing on IT pro­cure­ment and con­tract law, pos­si­bly even over sev­er­al days. No mat­ter which pro­cure­ment seg­ment you are inter­est­ed in: We are so broad­ly posi­tioned in pub­lic pro­cure­ment and con­tract law that we can cov­er all needs. Chal­lenge us.