23. November 2022

Second direct award to Karlsruhe transport company completed

The city of Karlsruhe has placed its local public transport on a new footing by directly awarding a public service contract under Regulation 1370/2007 to its municipal transport company VBK. The directly awarded public service contract has a term of 22.5 years and the economic volume is in the billion euro range. As with its sister company AVG, the direct award was prepared for a long time and was costly. In Karlsruhe, the special feature is that it is the interaction between the two Karlsruhe transport companies (AVG and VBK) that constitutes the “Karlsruhe model”. AVG, as a railroad company, provides local rail passenger transport outside Karlsruhe with so-called TramTrains, and VBK operates local public transport in the city of Karlsruhe. AVG’s TramTrains can use both rail and streetcar infrastructure. This capability allows passengers to travel by rail into the Karlsruhe city area without changing trains; in the Karlsruhe city area, AVG’s rail services become streetcar services operated by its sister company VBK. The new public service contract therefore also has considerable significance for the Karlsruhe metropolitan area.

Advisors to the City of Karlsruhe/Verkehrsbetriebe Karlsruhe GmbH (VBK): OPPENLÄNDER Rechtsanwälte, Stuttgart: Prof. Dr. Christofer Lenz, Dr. Corina Jürschik, LL.M., Dr. Henrike Schulte, Julia Felger (all Public Transport, Public Commercial Law), Dr. Carl Höfer (Corporate Law)

More information can be found here.

More news

01. July 2025

Julia Sauter, LL.M., is a new associated partner at OPPENLÄNDER

Julia Sauter was appointed associate partner on 1 July 2025.

Read more
01. June 2025

OPPENLÄNDER strengthens public law department with new lawyer

Dr. Maximilian Gerhold joined our public law team on June 1, 2025.

Read more
27. May 2025

OPPENLÄNDER expands its health law and intellectual property department with new lawyer

Franziska Gökmen joined the team led by Dr Timo Kieser on 1 May 2025 in the fields of health law and intellectual property law.

Read more
16. May 2025

OPPENLÄNDER advised one of the main shareholders of PFISTERER Holding SE on the placement of part of its shares in the context of a successful IPO

This is the first IPO in Germany this year. The shares of the electrical engineering specialist PFISTERER have been tradable on the Scale stock exchange segment since Wednesday, 14 May 2025.

Read more