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Bernt Elsner is a partner and head of the Public Procurement practice group, as well as co-head of the Austrian practice groups for Antitrust, Competition & Trade and Public Law/Regulatory. He is a leading expert in the fields of public procurement, antitrust law, and public law/regulatory. He has comprehensive industry expertise in the sectors construction and infrastructure, healthcare, finance as well as energy and climate change.
Bernt Elsner advises national and international companies on participating in procurement procedures, especially public-private partnerships (PPP projects), and represents clients in procurement review proceedings. He supports public contracting authorities in structuring and conducting complex tender processes. He also has extensive experience in procurement-related compliance issues. He is the author of seven specialist books on procurement law, numerous book contributions and articles, co-editor of the leading journal “Zeitschrift für Vergaberecht und Bauvertragsrecht” (Journal for Procurement and Construction Contract Law), and a seasoned speaker.
Bernt Elsner advises and represents clients in horizontal competition law matters, compliance particularly in the area of bid-rigging cartels, in national and European merger control proceedings, especially in cases of cross-border mergers, as well as in vertical distribution structures, abuse control, and state aid law.
As a former research associate at the Austrian Constitutional Court, he has specific experience and expertise in public law matters. He represents clients before authorities, federal and state administrative courts, the Constitutional Court, the Administrative Court, and European authorities and courts.
Bernt Elsner studied law at the University of Vienna and business administration at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. In 1993/94, he worked as a research associate at the Austrian Constitutional Court for constitutional judges Prof. Dr. Karl Spielbüchler and Prof. Dr. Karl Korinek. In 1997, he practiced European competition law at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in Brussels. He has more than 25 years of professional experience as a lawyer in Vienna and Brussels. From 2004 to 2010, he was Managing Partner at CMS Austria and from 2004 to 2019 a member of the CMS Executive Committee. Since 2024 he has been a member of the CMS Council.
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