Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer had to admit an embarrassing defeat in one of her most important armaments
projects on Friday. In a letter to the chairmen in the Defense Committee, State Secretary
Peter Tauber announced that the surprising contract confirmation for the Thuringian arms manufacturer CG Haenel had to be withdrawn by the federal administration office due to a possible patent infringement. An insider told SPIEGEL that the project was "reset to zero for the time being."
Tauber's writing reads cryptically, even for those familiar with the subject. The State Secretary explains that following a complaint from the competitor Heckler & Koch, "first verifiable", they learned of a possible patent infringement by the selected provider, CG Haenel. Since it cannot be ruled out that Heckler & Koch was disadvantaged as a result, the commitment to CG Haenel would have to be withdrawn. Now both offers, ie the HK416 and the MK556 from CG Haenel, would be checked again.
According to SPIEGEL information, there is a patent litigation surrounding the magazine of the MK556 assault rifle. Haenel has apparently been at odds with a US manufacturer for a long time who had certain components of the magazine protected by patents. From the point of view of the Thuringian gunsmiths, however, there is no protection. Nevertheless, the manufacturer should have made the ongoing dispute in the application for the major
Bundeswehr order for the new assault rifle transparent, according to procurement law experts.
Just a few weeks ago, the ministry surprisingly announced that after three years of testing, CG Haenel had been selected for the major order, which in all should have a volume of around 600 million euros. Until then, all experts up to the ministry had assumed that, as in previous decades, Heckler & Koch would win the contract, since the gunsmiths are considered the gold standard worldwide. However, with the MK556, CG Haenel offered an equivalent but significantly cheaper weapon.[/url]