Team of RIHS Rechtsanwalt GmbH during the 2025 year in review

Year in Review 2025: Growth and Legal Success at RIHS Rechtsanwalt GmbH

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Year in Review 2025: Growth, Experience, and Legal Success

The end of the year offers an opportunity to reflect on progress, results, and the trust placed in us by our clients.
In 2025, RIHS Rechtsanwalt GmbH continued its steady growth as an Austrian immigration and citizenship law firm, advising international clients, including US citizens, on residence and nationality matters, while also supporting companies and individuals in complex public and administrative law proceedings.

Initial Legal Consultations: A Structured First Step

Our structured initial legal consultation remains one of the most frequently used services of the firm.
In 2025 alone, clients made use of this offering 441 times to discuss their legal questions and develop well-founded legal strategies.

For international clients, initial consultations are regularly conducted online, allowing legal advice to be provided efficiently without the need to travel to Austria.

For many clients, the initial consultation marked the beginning of a longer-term engagement.

Citizenship and Immigration Law

Citizenship and immigration law remained a core focus of our practice in 2025 and is of particular relevance to international clients, including US citizens, seeking long-term residence or citizenship in Austria and the European Union.

Dr. Georg Rihs and Dr. Philipp Haas-Köhler work closely together in this field, supported by a dedicated team of junior legal staff. This enables the efficient handling of a high volume of complex administrative procedures.

In 2025, we achieved positive outcomes for 28 clients in citizenship matters, including naturalization proceedings, notifications under Austrian nationality law, and extensions of citizenship rights.

We also obtained favorable results for 57 clients in immigration and residence matters, including Red-White-Red Cards and Red-White-Red Card Plus, EU long-term residence permits, residence permits for family members, and other settlement titles.

Our extensive experience, streamlined internal processes, and constructive cooperation with the competent authorities are key factors behind these results.

In addition, we achieved favorable decisions before Austria’s highest administrative courts, including cases before the Supreme Administrative Court concerning student residence permits and asylum matters.

Public Procurement Law

Public procurement law was another significant area of activity in 2025, particularly for European and international companies participating in public tender procedures in Austria.

As an Austrian public procurement law firm, RIHS Rechtsanwalt GmbH advises bidders on legal protection, review procedures, and strategic risk management throughout all stages of procurement proceedings.

In several cases, contracting authorities withdrew contested decisions following our legal challenges. As a result, review proceedings were terminated and cost reimbursement was awarded to our clients. In another case, a court fully upheld our application and set aside the award decision, resulting in a complete procedural success.

The total contract value of the procurement procedures reviewed by our firm in 2025 amounted to approximately EUR 74 million, reflecting the economic significance of these proceedings and our experience in handling high-value public procurement disputes.

Beyond administrative review procedures, we also successfully pursued legal remedies in civil court proceedings related to procurement matters. In addition, Dr. Georg Rihs regularly publishes on Austrian public procurement law and provides strategic legal advice supporting key business decisions of our clients.

Clients value our swift, decisive action and our ability to navigate the Austrian procurement system efficiently and strategically.

Construction and Building Law

In the field of construction and building law, we regularly advise English-speaking individuals and companies in Austria on regulatory, permitting, and neighbor-law issues.

Our work in 2025 focused on building permit procedures, neighbor rights, and enforcement measures issued by building authorities. We represented clients before municipal building authorities and administrative courts.

One notable success was the annulment of a building permit by the Supreme Administrative Court in favor of affected neighboring property owners.

Further proceedings before the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Administrative Court are currently pending and will continue to shape our work in this area in the coming years.

Growth Requires Space: New Office in Vienna

A major milestone in 2025 was the relocation of the firm to new office premises in the historic center of Vienna.
The new office provides modern meeting facilities, a specialized public-law library, and expanded workspaces for our legal team, offering an optimal environment for high-quality legal work and client meetings.

Team Development and Firm Culture

To maintain our high service standards, we expanded both our administrative team and our group of junior legal staff. We are particularly proud of our long-standing employees, whose commitment and expertise are essential to handling a large and demanding caseload.

Continuous education and professional training remain a priority. Team activities and cultural engagements also play an important role in strengthening collaboration and maintaining a shared professional identity.

Looking Ahead to 2026

We would like to thank our clients for their trust and cooperation throughout 2025.
RIHS Rechtsanwalt GmbH remains fully committed to providing reliable, precise, and strategic legal advice in public and administrative law matters.

We look forward to continuing our work in 2026.

Author: Dr. Georg Rihs, Attorney-at-law, Managing Director RIHS Rechtsanwalt GmbH

Public Procurement Law: Technical Contribution on Legal Protection in Continued Proceedings before the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG)

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The legal protection of contractors in award procedures under the Federal Public Procurement Act for Concessions (BVergGKonz 2018) is a recurring topic. Therefore, we have dedicated an article to this current and important topic in the December issue of the Journal for Public Procurement Law and Construction Contract Law (ZVB).

In the article, we summarize our experiences and critical reflections on legal protection under procurement law in fortgese declaratory proceedings before the Federal Administrative Court. It is based on a decision of the Administrative Court (VwGH) in a case conducted by us, which supports the legal position of our client in a procurement procedure concerning a service concession under the Tobacco Monopoly Act (TabMG).

The finding of the VwGH and the lack of legal protection in public procurement law

On a regular basis and for quite some time, we have been conducting proceedings before the highest courts of public law (Administrative Court, Constitutional Court) in a specific area. These proceedings concern the awarding of contracts for tobacconists or the conclusion of order contracts for tobacconists under the Federal Public Procurement Act for Concessions (BVergGKonz) and the Tobacco Monopoly Act (TabMG).

In the process, we have found that the legal protection regime under public procurement law contains numerous pitfalls: Even if we have obtained a ruling supporting our legal position for our clients at the Supreme Court, the proceedings before the Federal Administrative Court are continued on the basis of a motion for continuation. The Federal Administrative Court must make a new decision in which it takes into account the legal opinion of the Supreme Court. In practice, this sometimes happens inadequately.

In this article, we point out the existing deficits in legal protection and present possible solutions for the legislature and administrative practice. Furthermore, we provide considerations on the relevance for the following damages litigation.

Our concern: Your legal protection in public procurement law

Our many years of expertise in public procurement law have led us to dedicate a separate article to the topic of legal protection under the Federal Procurement Act and BVergKonz. We would be pleased to represent you in the field of public procurement law in the best possible and well-founded manner. Through our publication activities, for which we draw from our legal practice, we contribute to the development of the law. This is also to the benefit of our clients.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you wish to examine the legality of a decision made by a public contracting authority (such as the Monopolverwaltung GmbH in the area of the tobacco monopoly, but also others) and contest it.

Source PDF of the article

Tobacco Monopoly: Federal Procurement Law Applicable!

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Our law firm has achieved another landmark victory for the rule of law: In its decision of 20 July 2021, Ra 2019/04/0231, the Administrative Court pronounced in a strengthened senate that the Federal Procurement Act for Concessions must be applied to the award of tobacconists or appointment of tobacconists within the framework of the tobacco monopoly.

In Austria, the award of tobacconists’ licenses was decided by the Monopolverwaltung GmbH (MVG GmbH). The difficult-to-comprehend and non-transparent awarding practice has recently also been questioned in media reports.
High-turnover tobacconists generate seven-figure revenues from the sale of tobacco products alone. In addition, the operation of a tobacconist’s shop enables lucrative sideline business such as the sale of lottery tickets etc. Currently, tobacconists are appointed practically for life.
Accordingly, traceability and transparency are important in the awarding of tobacconists’ contracts.

Tobacco monopoly: Court of Audit criticized awarding of tobacconists’ contracts

In the past, the Court of Audit has strongly criticized the awarding practice. Neither the legislature nor the administration has responded to this criticism. As in the past, the monopoly administration alone has been responsible for awarding contracts within the framework of the tobacco monopoly (based on the Tobacco Monopoly Act, or TabMG for short), which dates back to the post-war period. The special rights originally granted as a supply for war-disabled persons increasingly receded into the background in the allocation processes. The legislator did not react to the changed market conditions.

On the occasion of gross abuses in the award of some tobacconists’ contracts, our law firm initiated the first ever review proceedings under the BVergGKonz 2018 and demanded the application of the award regime for concessions based on Directive 2014/23/EU on the award of concessions or the Federal Act on the Award of Concessions (BVergGKonz 2018) adopted in implementation of this Directive.
The Federal Administrative Court rejected several of these requests for review on the grounds that the concessions were not service concessions, but a legal institution of a separate kind that does not impose any public interest obligations on tobacconists.

Administrative Court: BVergGKonz 2018 to be applied.

The Administrative Court has now corrected this ruling practice: In fact, numerous obligations in the public interest are imposed on tobacconists, in particular in the sense of supplying the population with tobacco products within the framework of the tobacco monopoly. For this reason, the monopoly administration GmbH must comply with the Federal Public Procurement Act for Concessions (BVergGKonz 2018). The legal protection instruments of the BVergGKonz 2018 also apply without restriction to the award of tobacco concessions.

We are pleased to have achieved this groundbreaking success in the field of public procurement law or public procurement law for concessions for our client.
Should you apply for a public concession, we will be happy to advise you and are also at your disposal in review proceedings!

Our success was reported by “Die Presse”, ORF, “Der Standard” and others.