Grant award law
Grant award law is a special matter that arises from interfaces between grant law and procurement law. In principle, funding law and procurement law stand side by side as separate legal areas.
In accordance with the Budget Principles Act and the financial regulations, the right to grants serves in particular to ensure the efficiency and economy of the use of public funds.
When it comes to procurement law, a distinction must first be made. Procurement law is divided into sub-threshold (“national”) and upper-threshold (“European”) procurement law, with this division being based on the applicable EU thresholds. In the European area, public procurement law follows the so-called antitrust solution, in which the focus is on equal and transparent competition. In the national area, which follows the so-called budget solution, the principle of economic efficiency and thrift in the use of public funds is in the foreground, as is the case with grant law. Nevertheless, the purpose of the above-threshold procurement law is also to ensure the economic viability of public contracts.
Because of the partly identical and partly at least similar purposes, grant providers now use public procurement law as an instrument to ensure the economical and economical allocation of public funds as grants within the framework of equal and transparent competitions. For this purpose, the funding providers must create an interface with the funding recipients because they are not per se obliged to comply with procurement law towards the funding providers. In the grant relationship, this generally takes the form of requirements for compliance with the procurement obligation if approval notices are issued, and in the form of contractual regulations if funding contracts are concluded. In particular, the administrative regulations for the processing of grants according to Sections 23, 44 BHO, LHO regulate that certain general ancillary provisions (ANBest) must be made part of the content of the grant relationship, in which these procurement obligations are expressly defined in the relationship between the grant provider and the grant recipient.
Legal disputes before the administrative courts often revolve specifically around the awarding obligations in the grant relationship, because violations of these awarding obligations threaten the cancellation of the funding decisions combined with significant demands for reimbursement of funding.
If you are confronted with this as a grant recipient or as a grant provider, we will be happy to help you as specialists in procurement, grants and, in particular, grant award law.
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