RO state road company goes ahead with EUR 19 mln fine against Italian constructor

Romania’s state road management company CNAIR notified the Italian construction company Salini Impregilo about the legal steps taken for the recovery by forced execution of RON 90 million (EUR 19 mln) plus some EUR 150,000 representing legal fees, in line with the ruling of the World Bank’s arbitration court (ICSID) in October 2019, News.ro reported.

The dispute dates since 2015 when CNAIR found a 200-meter crack on the 17-km segment of the Sibiu-Orastie motorway constructed by Salini and commissioned less than a year before.

The state company decided to repair the road using the guarantees made available by the constructor, which sued CNAIR at the Arbitrage Court – ICC Paris and won a RON 83 mln award in March 2017. It then went against CNAIR and got the money through forced execution.

However, CNAIR challenged the enforcement actions and won the case at the Bucharest Court of Appeal in 2018 and later at ICSID in 2019.

CNAIR awarded the 17-km motorway segment contract to Salini in 2014, for a price of EUR 121 mln.

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