Continued squabbling over billboard concessions
Posters The Lucerne poster submission has been suspended, in Basel APG has been confirmed as concessionaire.
Posters The Lucerne poster submission has been suspended, in Basel APG has been confirmed as concessionaire.
The Lucerne Administrative Court has suspended the tender for the poster concession launched last October and granted suspensive effect to an appeal by outdoor advertiser Clear Channel Plakanda (CCP). CCP had submitted the appeal to the court before the submission deadline had expired. It was directed against the tender criteria, which were unclear and incomplete, said CCP CEO Beat Roeschlin. CCP had therefore not yet submitted an offer. Daniel Bernet, a lawyer at the Lucerne Building Department, now expects a delay of "a maximum of six months". In Lucerne, 250 poster sites on public land are at stake, and a new situation has also arisen with regard to the poster concession in Basel. Shortly before Christmas, the administrative court there dismissed an appeal by CCP and confirmed the decision of the building department and the Basel transport company. Following a tender, the latter had awarded the billboard concession to APG because its billboard concept was better than that of CCP. The Basel court has now agreed with this opinion. According to Roeschlin, it remains to be seen whether CCP will lodge a constitutional appeal with the Federal Court. However, he regretted that the court had expressly not assessed the tender according to submission criteria, thus allowing the building authorities a very wide margin of discretion. In fact, the administrative court went out on a limb by specifying in its ruling when, in its opinion, a poster submission was mandatory and when it was voluntary (see p. 16).Markus Knöpfli
The Lucerne Administrative Court has suspended the tender for the poster concession launched last October and granted suspensive effect to an appeal by outdoor advertiser Clear Channel Plakanda (CCP). CCP had submitted the appeal to the court before the submission deadline had expired. It was directed against the tender criteria, which were unclear and incomplete, said CCP CEO Beat Roeschlin. CCP had therefore not yet submitted an offer. Daniel Bernet, a lawyer at the Lucerne Building Department, now expects a delay of "a maximum of six months". In Lucerne, 250 poster sites on public land are at stake, and a new situation has also arisen with regard to the poster concession in Basel. Shortly before Christmas, the administrative court there dismissed an appeal by CCP and confirmed the decision of the building department and the Basel transport company. Following a tender, the latter had awarded the billboard concession to APG because its billboard concept was better than that of CCP. The Basel court has now agreed with this opinion. According to Roeschlin, it remains to be seen whether CCP will lodge a constitutional appeal with the Federal Court. However, he regretted that the court had expressly not assessed the tender according to submission criteria, thus allowing the building authorities a very wide margin of discretion. In fact, the administrative court went out on a limb by specifying in its ruling when, in its opinion, a poster submission was mandatory and when it was voluntary (see p. 16).Markus Knöpfli
