Under the lead of fwp partner Rudolf Pekar, Fellner Wratzfeld & Partner Rechtsanwälte GmbH (fwp) advised Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft m.b.H. (BIG) in connection with the structuring and procurement of one of the first innovation partnerships in Austria.

Innovation partnerships were introduced in 2018 as a new kind of procurement procedure; what sets them apart is that once the actual procurement procedure for commissioning a contract partner is completed, innovative services are developed together with one or more enterprises to be used directly by the public contracting authority without the need to conduct a new procurement procedure.

The innovation partnership of BIG in the field of software development which fwp provided advice on, was concluded with several enterprises. The goal is to create an innovative electronic administration tool for the object and facility management department of BIG with a view to ensuring better networking between the different levels of stakeholders. In addition, a key aspect of this innovation partnership is the joint further development of functionalities and the potential joint distribution of the developed software to third parties within the scope of a joint venture.

In working on this – so far unique in Austria – project, fwp was responsible for structuring and handling the procurement procedure as well as for preparing the complex constituent elements of the agreement on the innovation partnership, software development and the joint venture.

“We are very happy to support another Austrian pilot project with our expertise, and to have been able to successfully complete the procurement phase of the innovation partnership. The greater flexibility in procurement offered by the innovation partnership is what makes it an important procurement tool in particular with regard to the development of innovative IT and software solutions”, says Pekar.