Award criteria

The award criteria are set out in Article 44 of the Public Procurement Act resp. defined in Article 56 of the Law on Public Procurement in the Field of Sectors. Award criteria usually refer to the subject matter of the contract and not to the characteristics of the bidder or offeror. Thus, the award criteria are not KO criteria, as in the case of the suitability criteria, but criteria that can be fulfilled in different ways, which can lead to correspondingly different evaluations of the individual bids. The contract is awarded to the most economically advantageous offer. The most economically advantageous offer is made on the basis of price or cost by means of a cost-effectiveness approach, such as life cycle costing, and may include the best price-performance ratio. The best price-quality ratio shall be determined according to the following criteria in particular, related to the subject matter of the contract, taking into account qualitative, environmental and/or social aspects:

• of quality, including technical merit, aesthetics, fitness for purpose, accessibility, design for all, social, environmental and innovative characteristics and trade and related conditions;
• the organization, qualifications, and experience of the personnel assigned to the performance of the contract, when the quality of the personnel assigned may have a significant impact on the level of contract performance; or
• the after-sales service and technical assistance, the delivery terms such as the delivery date, the delivery procedures, and the delivery or execution period.

The above list of award criteria is not exhaustive. Additional award criteria could be defined, provided that they comply with the principles such as non-discrimination and equal treatment.

The contracting authority shall indicate in the notice, the tender documents or - in the case of a competitive dialogue - in the description how it weights the individual criteria in order to determine the most economically advantageous tender. The weighting of the award criteria may be indicated by means of a margin, the widest range of which must be reasonable. If, in the opinion of the contracting authority, the weighting cannot be indicated for comprehensible reasons, it shall indicate the criteria in descending order of importance. The order of importance of the award criteria in the tender documents corresponds to the weighting of the individual criteria, i.e. the criterion mentioned first has the highest weighting. For reasons of transparency and equal treatment of all applicants or tenderers, the weighting of the award criteria must be stated in the tender documents. Furthermore, the disclosure of the weighting of the award criteria in the tender documents is also advantageous in the context of an appeal procedure.