Function

The Federal Public Procurement Office (hereafter "the Office") is tasked with the review of procurement decisions taken by public contracting authorities on federal level. Economic operators who consider their right to the lawful carrying out of a public procurement procedure has been infringed may thus seek redress through the Office.

Evolution and Organisation

The foundation for the Office´s function - the effective examination and review of federal public procurements - was established by the Austrian Federal Procurement Act of 1993 (BVergG 1993), which took effect on January 1, 1994.

By statute, the Office is an institution with sovereign rights an is empowered to decide on claims seeking the annulment of decisions taken by public contracting authorities, interlocutory injunctions and judicial declarations in cases where a contract is not awarded to the "best tenderer". The Office was furthermore established as a self-assessing federal judicial review authority whose decisions may be appealed before the Austrian Verfassungsgerichtshof (Constitutional Court) and Verwaltungsgerichtshof (Administrative Court).

Three-member "senates" decide in the first and last instance on applications lodged by tenderers or candidates, with the senate chairman deciding alone only on interlocutory injunctions. The senate chairman heads and conducts proceedings assisted by to assessors - one each representing the economic operator side (delegated by the Federal Economic Chamber or Federal Chamer of Architects and Chartered Engineering Consultants) and the contracting authority side (e.g., representatives of the Federal Ministries.) All senate members are independent and not bound by instructions from outside bodies, thus meeting the requirement for indepenet tribunals in terms of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The Office currently has 14 operational senates.