I mentioned the patent infringement. They principally revolved around the "Over the beach" (holes) in the gun. It is interesting that HK didn't care about this until they lost.
Haenel definitely undercut them in price. HK's complaint is similar to Bezos' complaint about Musk, that they is basically subsidizing (dumping) the rifle to get the contract. This is the same complaint folks made against SIG when they won the M17 contract.
The Haenel is not a copy of the Caracal 816. Haenel does however build the 816 under license from their parent company. The Haenel is, however, a further development of the 816, which is a development of the SIG 516, which is a development of the 416 (by the very same engineers). And of course the 416 is just an M4 with a G36 gas system, which is just an AR-18 gas system.
Basically Haenel was going to make 90% of the rifle in Germany. It was going to be financed by their extremely rich owners in the Abu Dhabi for sure. It was clearly, much like the Sig M17, an attempt to leapfrog to the front of the line of quality small arms manufacturers by selling the guns cheap and making the money back later with other sales.
There is another layer to this that is discussed in the German media. The leftists in south were extremely upset that a company with connections in the UAE were going to get the contract. Not because they were patriotic, but because the UAE had recently normalized relations with Israel (which German socialists can't stop hating).
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/an...ed-firm-642569