Federal Act
on Public Procurement
(PPA)

¹ In the case of com­plex con­tracts, in­tel­lec­tu­al ser­vices or the pro­cure­ment of in­nov­at­ive goods, work or ser­vices, a con­tract­ing au­thor­ity may, with­in the frame­work of an open or se­lect­ive pro­ced­ure, con­duct a dia­logue with the aim of spe­cify­ing the sub­ject of the sup­ply and identi­fy­ing and de­fin­ing the solu­tions or pro­ced­ures. Ref­er­ence must be made to the dia­logue in the in­vit­a­tion to tender.

² The dia­logue may not be con­duc­ted for the pur­pose of ne­go­ti­at­ing prices or total prices.

³ The con­tract­ing au­thor­ity for­mu­lates and ex­plains its needs and re­quire­ments in the in­vit­a­tion to tender or in the tender doc­u­ment­a­tion. It also dis­closes the fol­low­ing:

a.

the dia­logue pro­cess;

b.

the pos­sible con­tent of the dia­logue;

c.

wheth­er and how ten­der­ers will be com­pensated for their par­ti­cip­a­tion in the dia­logue and the use of their in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­erty rights, know­ledge and ex­per­i­ence;

d.

the time­frames and ar­range­ments for sub­mit­ting the fi­nal tender.

⁴ It may re­duce the num­ber of par­ti­cip­at­ing ten­der­ers by us­ing ob­ject­ive and trans­par­ent cri­ter­ia.

⁵ It doc­u­ments the pro­cess and con­tent of the dia­logue in an ap­pro­pri­ate and com­pre­hens­ible man­ner.

⁶ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may reg­u­late the dia­logue ar­range­ments in more de­tail.