Heuking paves the way for municipal IT cooperation

In the IT sector, municipalities are regularly dependent on cooperation. Without bundling legal and technical expertise, they would be at the mercy of large international IT companies without protection. In recent years, strong municipal IT service providers have therefore emerged throughout Germany to avoid this problem. By pooling resources and market power to provide efficient and economical IT services to their members, member interests are regularly bundled by special purpose associations and national organizations.

In a landmark ruling, the Schleswig-Holstein Public Procurement Chamber has now clarified that municipal cooperation in the IT sector is also permissible beyond the boundaries of special purpose associations and state organizations, thus closing a gap in public procurement law that has long been discussed.

Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek successfully represented a large public service provider in the review proceedings.