More trans­paren­cy in com­pe­ti­tion! 3 Infor­ma­tion you should know about the new com­pe­ti­tion reg­is­ter. — What is the com­pe­ti­tion reg­is­ter? (1)* (1)*

After the Com­pe­ti­tion Reg­is­ter Act (WRegG) was enact­ed and adopt­ed on July 29, 2017, the Fed­er­al Min­istry of Eco­nom­ics sub­mit­ted a draft bill for a Com­pe­ti­tion Reg­is­ter Ordi­nance in Novem­ber 2020. On Jan­u­ary 20, 2021, the Fed­er­al Cab­i­net adopt­ed the “Ordi­nance on the Oper­a­tion of the Reg­is­ter for the Pro­tec­tion of Com­pe­ti­tion for Pub­lic Con­tracts and Con­ces­sions.” This ordi­nance forms the basis for the estab­lish­ment of a com­pe­ti­tion reg­is­ter at the Fed­er­al Car­tel Office.

The Bun­deskartel­lamt has now start­ed the reg­is­tra­tion of eli­gi­ble pub­lic bod­ies for the oper­a­tion of the nation­wide com­pe­ti­tion reg­is­ter. This was announced by the author­i­ty in a press release dat­ed March 25, 2021 and by the Fed­er­al Min­istry of Eco­nom­ics in a cir­cu­lar dat­ed March 03, 2021.

In the future, pub­lic con­tract­ing author­i­ties can or must (from a con­tract val­ue of €30,000) inform them­selves in the com­pe­ti­tion reg­is­ter whether a bid­der is sub­ject to a ban on award­ing con­tracts due to attrib­ut­able legal vio­la­tions. Pur­suant to Sec­tion 4 WRegG, the pros­e­cu­tion author­i­ties are oblig­ed to noti­fy the reg­is­ter author­i­ty of final con­vic­tions, penal­ty orders and penal­ty notices that lead to option­al (Sec­tion 123 GWB) or manda­to­ry (Sec­tion 124 GWB) grounds for exclu­sion. Here, com­pa­nies are list­ed dig­i­tal­ly which have attract­ed atten­tion in the past due to eco­nom­ic crimes such as fraud or cor­rup­tion.

If you as an entrepreneur/company are unlaw­ful­ly affect­ed by this, please feel free to call us at +49 341–910 284 05

It also reg­u­lates the pre­vi­ous­ly incon­sis­tent dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion between reg­is­ter author­i­ties and users. In the future, the com­pe­ti­tion reg­is­ter will replace the state cor­rup­tion reg­is­ters, with the com­mer­cial cen­tral reg­is­ter remain­ing in its form. The oper­a­tion of the state cor­rup­tion reg­is­ters will be dis­con­tin­ued with­out any migra­tion of data to the com­pe­ti­tion reg­is­ter.

Fur­ther­more, the com­pe­ti­tion reg­is­ter con­tains a cat­a­log of require­ments for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of self-clean­ing of a com­pa­ny with­in the mean­ing of Sec­tion 125 of the ARC.

If you are a contractor/company plan­ning to self-clean to end a pro­cure­ment hold, please feel free to call us at +49 341–910 284 05.

The leg­is­la­tor expects this to lead to stan­dard­iza­tion and greater trans­paren­cy in pub­lic com­pe­ti­tion, both for con­tract­ing author­i­ties and for bid­ders. The new com­pe­ti­tion reg­is­ter is also intend­ed to pro­mote the pre­ven­tion of eco­nom­ic crime.

The ITZ Bund is respon­si­ble for set­ting up the com­pe­ti­tion reg­is­ter in coop­er­a­tion with var­i­ous IT ser­vice providers.

It should be pos­si­ble to access the com­pe­ti­tion reg­is­ter as ear­ly as this year (2021).

In the next arti­cle in the series on the Com­pe­ti­tion Reg­is­ter, we will go into its exact func­tions and con­tents.

*This legal tip is no sub­sti­tute for legal advice in indi­vid­ual cas­es. By its very nature, it is incom­plete, it does not relate to your case, and it also rep­re­sents a snap­shot, as the legal basis and case law change over time. It can­not and does not cov­er all con­ceiv­able con­stel­la­tions, serves main­te­nance and ini­tial ori­en­ta­tion pur­pos­es and is intend­ed to moti­vate you to clar­i­fy legal issues at an ear­ly stage, but not to dis­cour­age you from doing so.