award of contract

Which translation, when

Why

Award of contract translates as Zuschlag, and the German institute is narrower and sharper than the English phrase. The Zuschlag is the acceptance of the selected offer in the sense of general contract law: with it the contract is concluded, and no separate execution stage follows. Anglo-American procurement documents routinely distinguish the award decision, the notification, the letter of intent and the signing of the contract, and none of those intermediate steps has a German counterpart in a procurement procedure, so a translation that keeps them invents a sequence. It also follows that an offer which has expired can no longer be accepted, which is why the period of validity of tenders is watched so closely. Before the Zuschlag comes the step that generates most German procurement litigation. Section 134 GWB requires the contracting authority to inform, in text form and without undue delay, every bidder whose offer is not to be considered, telling him the name of the undertaking whose offer is to be accepted, the reasons for the intended rejection of his own and the earliest date on which the contract will be concluded. The contract may then be concluded only after fifteen calendar days from the dispatch of that information, reduced to ten where it was sent electronically or by fax, and the period runs from the day after dispatch, the date of receipt being expressly irrelevant. The sanction gives the rule its weight: awarding without the information or before the standstill has expired renders the opens § 135 GWB, under which the contract counts as void from the outset only where the breach has been established in review proceedings and the invalidity was raised there within thirty calendar days of the information about the conclusion of the contract, at the latest six months after it, an application made later being inadmissible; the challenge itself belongs to the review procedure entry.

Typical mistakes

• The Zuschlag concludes the contract, so translating it as a mere award decision followed by signing invents a stage German procurement does not have.
• The standstill period runs from dispatch of the information and not from its receipt, § 134 Abs. 2 GWB, so calculating from the bidder’s date of knowledge is wrong.
• An award made without the required information or before the period expires can be void from the outset, but only if the breach is established in review proceedings within the statutory periods, so neither treating the standstill as a formality nor assuming automatic nullity describes the position.

What matters

Reviewing a German standstill letter for a bidder: the check should confirm that the successful undertaking is named, that individual reasons are given, and that the deadline is calculated from dispatch, since the award itself will conclude the contract.

Examples