Federal Procurement Office

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Bundesvergabeamt (BVA) was an independent Austrian federal authority which had to ensure the legal protection of the bidders in an award procedure of a public client at the federal level .

history

Its historical forerunner, on the other hand, was the procurement control commission set up at the Federal Ministry of Economics in 1992 for the area of ​​federal road administration by Federal Minister Wolfgang Schüssel (1st chairman: Karl Korinek , later President of the Constitutional Court ) as an advisory body according to § 8 Federal Ministries Act with an office in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. At the end of his contribution, Aicher compares the introduction of the commission as a public procurement control in Galicia with the forerunner of the ABGB in Galicia, which underlines the preparatory nature of this institution with regard to a judicature of this new legal matter that is still to be developed in connection with the legalization of procurement control, which is only being 2014 was completed. The Procurement Review Commission in 1994 was replaced by the Federal Procurement Review Commission (1. Chairman: Josef Aicher ) and simultaneously furnished Bundesvergabeamt (1st Chairman: Walter Melnizky , President of the Supreme Court). The new Federal Procurement Control Commission was placed before the Federal Procurement Office as an arbitration body and was dissolved in 2002. The 1994 acc. Article 133 Z 4 of the Federal Constitution (amended before 2014) as an independent Kolligialbehörde with judicial impact at the Ministry of Economic Affairs furnished Bundesvergabeamt was also a department of the Ministry of Economy as a branch (headed by Dr. Günther MinRat Schwayer) supported.

With the Federal Procurement Act 2002, which came into force on September 1, 2002, procurement-specific legal protection was reorganized. This has been expanded to include awards below the threshold values ​​that are relevant under Community law and the Federal Procurement Office has been newly established as a special control authority with full-time Senate chairmen (1st chairman Dr. Michael Sachs) and other part-time members. The obligation to carry out an arbitration procedure before the Federal Procurement Control Commission before submitting an application to the Federal Procurement Office was no longer required.

The main task of the Federal Procurement Office was the legal protection of the bidders. Therefore, the Federal Procurement Office only acted at the request of a bidder / applicant and did not have any independent testing competence with regard to public procurement. With the help of the BVA, the bidders were able to enforce their right to a fair and transparent award procedure. Important instruments of legal protection in the public procurement procedure were (and are still before the Federal Administrative Court):

  • the application for a review of a procurement procedure
  • the application for an injunction
  • the application for a determination procedure

In 2007, 119 applications for review proceedings, 104 applications for an interim injunction and 6 applications for declaratory proceedings were submitted to the BVA.

The Federal Procurement Office was basically active in senates, which consist of a senate chairman and two assessors. One assessor each came from the circle of the client and the contractor. Exceptions are the issuing of interim injunctions and the procedures below the threshold values ​​stipulated by Union law. In these cases, the Senate Chairpersons make decisions as individual members.

The chairman of the BVA, as well as the chairmen of the senate and the other members were appointed by the federal president at the suggestion of the federal government. They were not subject to instructions in the exercise of their office.

The Federal Procurement Office was dissolved as part of the 2012 amendment to administrative jurisdiction , which came into force on January 1, 2014. The Federal Administrative Court took over the responsibilities of the Federal Procurement Office.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. “Vergabekontrollkommission” Korinek-Aicher, Vienna 1991; Law-Politics-Economy, Issue 7, Orac-Verlag.