Ordinance on Public Procurement (PPO) (PPO)
English is not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. This translation is provided for information purposes only and has no legal force.
Art. 20 Language of publications
(Art. 48 paras. 4 and 5 of the PPA) 1 In derogation from Article 48 paragraph 5 letters a and b of the PPA, a publication may exceptionally be produced in one official language of the Confederation and in another language, if it: a. relates to goods or services that are to be provided abroad; or b. involves highly specialised technical goods or services. 2 If none of the languages specified in paragraph 1 corresponds to an official language of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the contracting authority shall in addition publish a summary of the invitation to tender in an official language of the WTO in accordance with Article 48 paragraph 4 of the PPA.
Art. 21 Language of the tender documentation
(Art. 47 para. 3 and 48 para. 5 of the PPA) 1 For supplies of goods and services, the tender documentation shall, as a general rule, be written in the two official languages of the Confederation in which the invitation to tender was published. 2 The contracting authority may publish the tender documentation in only one official language of the Confederation if, on the basis of reactions to an advance notice or other indications, it is to be expected that there is no need to publish the tender documentation in two official languages. 3 In addition, the tender documentation may be written in only one official language of the Confederation or, in cases specified in Article 20, in another language if: a. a translation would result in considerable additional costs; considerable additional costs are deemed to exist when the cost of translation would exceed 5% of the contract value or CHF 50,000; or b. the goods or services are not to be provided in different language regions of Switzerland a
Art. 22 Language of submissions
1 The contracting authority shall accept tenders, requests to participate, applications for inclusion on a list and questions in German, French and Italian. 2 For the cases specified in Article 20, the contracting authority may specify the language or languages of the submissions.
Art. 23 Language of the procedure
(Art. 35 let. m of the PPA) 1 The contracting authority shall designate German, French or Italian as the language of the procedure. For the cases specified in Article 20, it may choose another language; in these cases, its decisions must still be communicated in an official language of the Confederation. 2 In selecting the language of the procedure, it shall consider as far as possible the language region from which the most tenders can be expected for the goods or services to be provided. For construction work and associated supplies of goods and services, it shall be assumed that most tenders will be received in the official language at the site of the construction. 3 Unless otherwise agreed, the contracting authority shall communicate with the tenderers in the language of the procedure. It shall answer questions on the tender documentation in the language of the procedure or in the official language of the Confederation in which they were submitted.