"Das Gebot der eindeutigen Leistungsbeschreibung zwischen Vergaberecht und Allgemeiner Rechtsgeschäftslehre" [The duty of the contracting authority to identify the subject-matter of the procurement in the light of German contract law]

The requirement for a clear description of the service set out in Section 121(1), first sentence, of the German Act against Restraints of Competition (GWB) concerns the manner in which the contracting authority must set out the requirements for the service to be procured. This is a distinctive feature of public procurement law, as there is no corresponding requirement in general contract law to express a declaration of intent or an invitation to tender ‘clearly’. This article examines the question of how the content of the service description can be determined by interpretation for the purposes of public procurement law, and then addresses the requirements and the legal classification of the requirement for a clear service description.