Administrative Fee Ordinance amended in NRW

By ordinance of February 25, 2014, the General Administrative Fees Ordinance of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia was amended. Fees for official acts of state authorities under the Genetic Engineering Act are still listed under Section 27.1, and those under the Genetic Engineering Safety Ordinance are listed under Section 27.2. The general structure of the Genetic Engineering Act distinguishes between costs for notifications and registrations (Section 27.1.1), approvals (Section 27.1.2), and inspections, monitoring, and orders (Section 27.1.3).
In general, it can be said that the fee range for individual official procedures has been increased. For example, the review of an application for an S2 facility costs between €100.00 and €4,500.00. This also applies to significant modifications to such a facility. The fee for reclassifying an existing facility as a genetic engineering facility has also been increased from €100.00 to €5,000.00 to €200.00 to €9,000.00.
However, the change in section 27.1.3.5 is likely to have the most far-reaching impact. Whereas previously a flat fee of €100.00 applied for the first inspection per calendar year for monitoring the construction and operation of a facility, the inspection appointment, the necessary pre- and post-treatment, including the necessary travel time, will now be billed based on the time spent. The applicable hourly rates (guidelines) published by the Ministry of the Interior are to be used as a basis for calculating each hour or part thereof. This is €54.00/hour for employees in the higher service and €69.00/hour for employees in the higher service. Woe betide those whose facility is located far from the monitoring authority or whose documents are not clearly presented. Greater attention will therefore have to be paid to preparing for the inspection appointment in the future if costs are to be kept within manageable limits. It is obvious that this will disadvantage North Rhine-Westphalian facilities as a result of the cost approach, where, for example, flat rates still apply in Lower Saxony (No. 37.1.17 Annex 1 AllGO.NI) and in Hesse time-based fees are only provided for if requirements and orders have not been complied with (No. 142621 Annex to Section 1 of the Administrative Cost List to the Administrative Cost Regulations).

This publication can also be found on the website of the law firm Dr. Kauch .