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2018 procurement law reform in Austria: The best bidder principle is to be strengthened

From October on, electronic procurement procedures will be mandatory. The main goal of the 2018 procurement law reform is to simplify the legal framework for public contract award processes, based on the requirements of the European Union.

Woman signing a contract

The main changes concern the introduction of new types of award procedures, the possibility of joint contract award processes by Austrian authorities and authorities of other EU countries, and the reinforcement of the best bidder principle. According to this, in future, orders will be awarded for qualitative reasons more than in the past and not solely for reasons of price. To do this, a new quality assurance model that allows the clients to stipulate quality criteria in the specifications, the suitability criteria or the terms of performance is being introduced. This serves to prevent high price pressure from causing low-wage and social dumping. As previously, the tender must clearly state which services are required and how the individual award criteria are weighted.

Direct awards: threshold of 50,000 Euros

The threshold for direct awards without prior notice is still set at EUR 50,000. However, it is still possible to increase or reduce the amount by order. From now on, however, this will not be the responsibility of the Federal Chancellor but that of the Minister of Justice. According to the current regulation, the upper limit for direct awards is 100,000 euros.

From October on, the contracting entities' obligation to use electronic award procedures comes into force in the upper threshold area. In the interests of transparency, the results of all relevant award procedures must also be published on a separate platform.

If you have any questions about the procurement law reform or if you have general questions about the exporting country Austria, Katalin Dreher-Hajnal, Consultant Central Eastern Europe, would be happy to help you

 

You will find the legal text and a more detailed description of the changes under the following links.

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