BHO Legal “pitches” at the Bundeswehr Cyber Innovation Hub

On March 18, 2019, Dr Oliver Heinrich, Gerhard Deiters and Dr Nana Baidoo attended at the Bundeswehr Cyber Innovation Hub’s Pitch Day of the “Task Force Drones”. Gerhard Deiters spoke on behalf of BHO Legal on legal issues and pitfalls in the cooperation between start-ups and the German Armed Forces (German “Bundeswehr”) as a public client. On this occasion, BHO Legal was able to share general experiences from the cooperation both with start-ups and with the contracting authority German Armed Forces, and to contribute to mutual understanding.

Gerhard Deiters also dealt in his presentation with the agile approach common with start-ups and its advantages in project implementation. He distinguished the procedure from the “waterfall” model customary with the public client and made clear that the modern agile procedure requires appropriate consideration in award procedures and contract drafting and binds personnel on both sides in project implementation, but that the client is regularly compensated with more user-oriented results and that the applicable public procurement law does not stand in the way of an appropriate award of contract.

With a view to the drone sector, Gerhard Deiters spoke about the legal challenges arising from a highly fragmented and inconsistent regulatory landscape within the EU and between the German Federal States. In addition, the data protection law, namely the EU General Data Protection Regulation of 2018, which comes to the fore again and again in the operation of drones, was also addressed.

Gerhard Deiters concluded his presentation with hints for a successful cooperation with public clients.

The Pitch Day took place at the Military History Museum Berlin-Gatow Airfield and gave start-ups the opportunity to pitch their innovations around UAV, UAV security, countermeasures and hacking, AI for UAV, encryption, HMI interfaces or UAV software in front of security experts and high-ranking decision-makers of the German Armed Forces – and to impress Dr Oliver Heinrich, Gerhard Deiters and Dr Nana Baidoo, who accompanied the event all day, with their innovations.