Public procurement law

The firm that loses a German tender is der unterlegene Bieter, and the adjective hides a verb most learners never meet in its bare form. Unterlegen looks like a verb of its own — and there is one, to lay something underneath — but here it is the past participle of unterliegen, to be defeated, built on liegen, lag, gelegen. The prefix is inseparable, so the participle takes no ge-, and the result happens to look exactly like an infinitive. The auxiliary then follows the meaning. When the verb means losing, standard German uses sein: der Bieter ist unterlegen. When it means being subject to a rule, it uses haben: der Auftrag hat dem Vergaberecht unterlegen. In both senses whatever you lose to, or are bound by, stands in the dative: einem Mitbewerber unterlegen sein.