Overview
- The Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf on Wednesday ordered the City of Datteln to rerun the procurement for about 650 school tablets, blocking the planned purchase of iPads.
- Samsung sued after the city’s tender explicitly sought Apple iPads and excluded other manufacturers, and the company won its appeal after first losing before the local procurement chamber.
- The court said German rules allow naming a product or brand only in narrow cases and that Datteln’s specification did not meet those legal conditions.
- As a practical result, the restart will delay replacements for ageing school devices and may defer deliveries until 2027, leaving pupils without new tablets in the short term.
- The decision could reshape how municipalities write technical requirements ahead of the Digitalpakt 2.0 funding round by forcing more product-neutral, function-based specifications to preserve competition.