Our colleague, Eva Camiña Giral from the law firm Schrade Partner Rechtsanwälte
PartmbB, achieved a significant procedural victory for a Spanish client (Judgment of the
Bonn Regional Court, 21 May 2025, 1 O 184/21).
At the start of the pandemic, the German government launched a public procurement
procedure known as the “Open-House-Verfahren” to meet domestic demand for FFP2 masks.
Under this procedure, the state undertook to conclude contracts with all suppliers who
submitted a valid bid by the specified deadline. The German government set a price of €4.50
net per mask, which attracted many companies. Our Spanish client was awarded a contract
to purchase one million masks.
However, the government was quickly overwhelmed by the high volume of orders. It soon
filed claims for defects based on quality control procedures that did not comply with the
agreed contractual standards. At the same time, it terminated numerous contracts, including
that of our client. Only a small portion of the masks were paid for. However, the Bonn
Regional Court ruled that the CISG (United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods or the Vienna Convention of 1980) applied and that the price must be paid. The CISG sets strict deadlines for claiming defects (Articles 38 and 39) and for terminating the contract, and considerably limits the grounds for valid termination (Article 49). In this case, termination of the contract was ineffective because the State had not given the opportunity to make a new delivery, the termination notice was not given in time, and there had been no substantial breach of contract.
