Dispute over assault rifle order: setback for weapons manufacturer Haenel

In the dispute over a major Bundeswehr order for 120,000 assault rifles, the weapons manufacturer CG Haenel has to accept another setback.

The Federal Ministry of Defense announced on Thursday evening that the Federal Public Procurement Chamber had rejected the review request for the award of the contract.

The public procurement tribunal, which is located at the Federal Cartel Office in Bonn, has "expressly stated that the Federal Ministry of Defense rightly intends to award the contract to Heckler & Koch GmbH in this procurement procedure".

Haenel can appeal against the Bonn chamber decision to the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court.

The company could not be reached for comment.

The major order was supposed to have been awarded a long time ago, but there were delays and twists and turns. Last autumn, the Bundeswehr Procurement Office surprisingly decided not to purchase assault rifles from the Black Forest armory, Heckler & Koch, for the first time in around 60 years, but from the small company CG Haenel from Suhl in Thuringia, which belongs to an armaments company from the United Arab Emirates . Heckler & Koch appealed against this. The U-turn followed in March: The Federal Ministry of Defense announced that Haenel had been excluded from the award process due to patent infringements and that it was intended to award the contract to Heckler & Koch.

Against this Haenel took legal action, but failed before the public procurement tribunal.

It is considered likely that the gunsmith will move to the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court.

Experts estimate that it could take three to five months for this court to make a decision.

The Bonn decision is good news for Heckler & Koch: The company can prepare itself to remain a domestic supplier to the Bundeswehr.

The order has a maximum volume of 245 million euros, but HK's last bid was reportedly 179 million euros.

Haenel wanted less money, but was then expelled - and will probably not come back into the procurement process.

With the Bundeswehr as a customer, Heckler & Koch also has a good hand in recruiting other customers - this is why the order is particularly important for the 1000-employee company from Oberndorf, southwest of Stuttgart. However, it is not certain whether the federal government will still want to award the contract - it is possible that it will back down and continue to rely on the previous standard assault rifle of the German armed forces, the G36 from HK.