Federal Act
on Public Procurement
(PPA)

¹ The con­tract­ing au­thor­ity may is­sue an in­vit­a­tion to tender to­wards agree­ments with one or more ten­der­ers with the aim of de­term­in­ing the terms for the goods, work and ser­vices to be pro­cured over a giv­en peri­od, in par­tic­u­lar with re­gard to their price and, where ap­pro­pri­ate, the quant­it­ies en­vis­aged. The con­tract­ing au­thor­ity may con­clude in­di­vidu­al con­tracts based on such a frame­work agree­ment dur­ing its term.

² Frame­work agree­ments may not be used with the in­ten­tion or ef­fect of im­ped­ing or elim­in­at­ing com­pet­i­tion.

³ The term of a frame­work agree­ment may not ex­ceed 5 years. An auto­mat­ic ex­ten­sion is not pos­sible. A longer term may be en­vis­aged in jus­ti­fied cases.

⁴ If a frame­work agree­ment is con­cluded with only one ten­der­er, the in­di­vidu­al con­tracts based on this frame­work agree­ment are con­cluded in ac­cord­ance with the terms of the frame­work agree­ment. For the con­clu­sion of the in­di­vidu­al con­tracts, the con­tract­ing au­thor­ity may ask the re­spect­ive con­tract­ing party in writ­ing to com­plete its tender.

⁵ If frame­work agree­ments are con­cluded with sev­er­al ten­der­ers for suf­fi­cient reas­ons, the con­tract­ing au­thor­ity may choose to con­clude in­di­vidu­al con­tracts either in ac­cord­ance with the terms of the re­spect­ive frame­work agree­ment without a new call for tenders or in ac­cord­ance with the fol­low­ing pro­ced­ure:

a.

Be­fore con­clud­ing each in­di­vidu­al con­tract, the con­tract­ing au­thor­ity con­sults the con­tract­ing parties in writ­ing and in­forms them of the spe­cif­ic needs.

b.

The con­tract­ing au­thor­ity sets the con­tract­ing parties a reas­on­able dead­line for sub­mit­ting tenders for each in­di­vidu­al con­tract.

c.

The tenders must be sub­mit­ted in writ­ing and are bind­ing for the peri­od spe­cified in the re­quest.

d.

The con­tract­ing au­thor­ity con­cludes the in­di­vidu­al con­tract with the con­tract­ing party that sub­mits the best tender based on the cri­ter­ia defined in the tender doc­u­ment­a­tion or frame­work agree­ment.