Ordinance on Public Procurement (PPO) (PPO)
(Art. 22 of the PPA)
English is not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. This translation is provided for information purposes only and has no legal force.
Art. 13 Type of goods, work and services
Competition and study contract procedures may be used to procure all goods, work and services within the meaning of Article 8 paragraph 2 of the PPA.
Art. 14 Scope of application
1 Competition and study contract procedures may be used by the contracting authority to develop various solutions, in particular with regard to conceptual, design, environmental, economic, functional or technical aspects. 2 Competition procedures shall be used for tasks that can be sufficiently and conclusively defined in advance. 3 Study contract procedures are suitable for tasks which, due to their complexity, can only be specified and completed during the course of the procedure.
Art. 15 Types of procedure
1 Competitions and study contracts shall be put out to tender in an open or selective procedure, provided the value of the contract reaches the relevant threshold laid down in Annex 4 of the PPA. 2 If these thresholds are not reached, the competition or study contract may be awarded in an invitation procedure. 3 The number of participants may be reduced in the course of the procedure, provided this eventuality was indicated in the invitation to tender.
Art. 16 Independent panel of experts
1 The independent panel of experts shall be composed of: a. specialists in at least one field relevant to the goods or services tendered for; b. other persons freely designated by the contracting authority. 2 The majority of the members of the panel must be specialists. 3 At least half of the specialists must be independent from the contracting authority. 4 The panel may call in experts at any time to give their opinion on specialist issues. 5 In particular, it shall make a recommendation to the contracting authority for the award of a subsequent contract or for the next steps to be taken. In the competition procedure, it shall also decide on the ranking of the formally correct competition entries and on the awarding of prizes. 6 It may also rank, or recommend for further processing, entries that deviate in key areas from the requirements of the invitation to tender (purchase), provided: a. this possibility has been expressly set out in the invitation to tender; and b. it decides so in
Art. 17 Special provisions on the competition procedure
1 In the competition procedure, competition entries must be submitted anonymously. Participants who violate the anonymity requirement will be excluded from the competition. 2 The members of the independent panel of experts shall be disclosed in the tender documents. 3 The contracting authority may revoke anonymity prematurely if this is stipulated in the invitation to tender.
Art. 18 Claims arising from the competition or study contract
1 The contracting authority shall, in particular, set out the following in the invitation to tender: a. whether the winner will receive a subsequent contract; b. what the participants are entitled to (in particular prizes, compensation, any purchases). 2 In addition, the invitation to tender must specify what additional claims to compensation the creators of entries have, in cases where: a. a subsequent contract has been announced; and b. one of the following conditions is met: 1. The contracting authority awards the contract to a third party, even though the independent panel of experts recommended that it be awarded to the creator of the entry. 2. The contracting authority continues to use the entry with the contractor's consent, without awarding the contractor a subsequent contract.
Art. 19 Directives
The Federal Department of Finance (FDF) shall issue further and supplementary sector-specific directives on the competition and study contract procedures for contracting authorities; it shall issue the directives on request from: a. the Federal Procurement Conference (FPC) in accordance with Article 24 of the Ordinance of 24 October 2012 on the Organisation of Federal Public Procurement; or b. the Coordination Conference for Public Sector Construction and Property Services (KBOB) in accordance with Article 27 of the Ordinance of 5 December 2008 on Federal Real Estate Management and Logistics.
let. a — SR 172.056.15 let. b — SR 172.010.21