Regulation PR No. 30/53 on Pricing in Public Contracts, which is often referred to in bid documents, is aimed at ensuring stricter observance of market principles in public contracts. The regulation dates from 1953 when market pricing was not common but the determination of prices was made by official authorities. Despite of its age, it is still common in Germany to refer to this regulation in public contracts. The regulation PR No. 30/53 is a tool to guarantee a fair market value for contracting authorities. As a basic rule, contracting authorities are supposed to pay market prices unless a market price does not exist for the requested services or goods. In the latter case, the regulation sets forth rules on how to determine what price the contracting authority has to pay. The most important factor to determine prices are the costs of the supplier of goods or the provider of services, respectively. Costs in this context also include a certain share of profit. If possible, cost prices are to be determined on a standardized basis, i.e. consistent for similar types of goods or services. Only if standardization is not possible, individual costs of suppliers and providers are the relevant basis for cost determination. Accordingly, the aforementioned regulation PR No. 30/53 is only relevant if market pricing does not exist for the respective services/goods.

No, in general, general civil law applies to public contracts in the same way as to any private contract.

However, some specific rules apply concerning the termination of the contract. According to public procurement law requirements the contracting authority has the right to terminate the contract under the following circumstances:

• there has been made a significant change to an existing public contract that would have required a new procurement procedure according to section 132 GWB, however such re-tender did not take place (see above under 2 e.).
• a reason for mandatory exclusion according to paragraph 1 to 4 of section 123 GWB existed at the time of the contract award.
• the public contract should not have been awarded to the contractor as this has led to a serious violation of the obligations out of the TFEU or out of the provisions of part 4 of the GWB, which has been determined by the ECJ in a proceeding following section 258 TFEU.