this State you won’t have to make it up to the dealer Alicante-Torrevieja-Cartagena motorway for the decrease in income incurred as a result of the declaration alarm status to deal with the pandemic. this Supreme Court dismissed appeal The contentious-administrative action brought by Ausur against the Government’s decision to refuse this compensation, considering that this refusal was lawful.
Specifically, the company owns pralesa and Strong Group He demanded to be known as (El Pozo). Damage up to 3,049,838 Euros As a result of the measures taken to curb the covid, which paralyzed the traffic on the roads in the months when the alarm situation continued. For this reason, he demanded that the economic balance of the concession agreement be re-established with a contract. Extension of the period to 235 daysthat is, allowing the road to be used for about eight more months after the initiation period has expired.
This is the possibility that the Government itself was included in the Law of Royal Decree 8/2020 of 17 March 2020 of that year and different regulations were established in it. measures to mitigate the economic effects of the alarm situation, has designed several initiatives to assist civil service concessionaires as well.
However, later, in July, the Executive Board specified in another decree. -RD-law 26/2020- conditions that must be met to receive these compensations and in the case of state highways, gross operating margin would be negative during the validity period of the alarm condition. In the Ausur case, it was EUR 287,944 in the court’s own judgment, which, like most concessionaires, led the Government to dismiss their claims. In fact, Aulesa, which only owns the highway from León to Astorga, received a small extension of nine days.
The owner of the Torrevieja highway did not give up and decided appeal to the Almighty Alleging that some articles of this second decree were unconstitutional because, in his opinion, a discrimination Also, on those of the territorial nature of state highways or other concessions and utilities, he considered usurped his right rebalancing the concession agreement and violated the principle of legal certaintyby determining the conditions for possible retroactive compensation.
For all these reasons, he requested the court to submit a report. unconstitutional objection. However, in the decision of 19 July, Almighty rejects all arguments one by one belongs to the concessionaire and endorses the Government’s thesis. Therefore, it rejects any discrimination towards creating different compensation mechanisms for different types of public concessions – pointing out, for example, that the management of a highway is not the same as the concession of a normal transport line – and does not take this into account. either there is insecurity or the conditions necessary to take advantage of the conditions are unconstitutional. For all these reasons, the appeal is rejected and the company decides to pay the costs.
Ausur’s appeal was filed in February 2021, when the Government’s refusal due to administrative silence took place, so an appeal was filed against the “alleged dismissal” of the rebalancing request, and it wasn’t until June 2022 that the Cabinet formally notified. rejection of the concessionaire’s request. Then, the Supreme Court offered the company to expand the purpose of its claim, but the firm refused. The concessionaire also did not want to comment on this newspaper.
failed sale
The Supreme Court’s refusal of Ausur’s claims to extend its concession to compensate for damages resulting from the declaration of its state of alarm came after its owners – Pralesa and Grupo Fuertes – abandoned their plans to sell the concessionaire. After the process that started at the end of last year, a joint offer to the company’s shareholders under the leadership of Bestinver and DIF executives did not meet their financial expectations. In the face of this situation, they chose to step back and are now looking for other alternatives.
Ausur was one of the few next-generation highways that survived bankruptcy and public bailout after the burst of the real estate bubble that led to the state taking over the management of the Madrid radials, or Alicante toll roads. But the owner of the Torrevieja highway managed to come to an agreement to refinance the debt with the banking syndication that allowed it to continue.