The Portuguese government has been ordered to pay compensation of €150 million for cancelling work on the Lisbon-Madrid high speed rail link.
The Portuguese government plans to appeal to the Constitutional Court and to ask for an assessment by the Court of Auditors as it does not agree with the arbitration tribunal’s findings and compensation order payable to the Elos consortium.
The arbitritation tribunal ruled that the Portuguese State had to pay the Elos consortium "a substantial portion" of the already reduced figure of €170 million its partners had claimed.
In 2010, the Portuguese government led by socialist PM José Sócrates awarded the work to Elos to build the infrastructure for the high speed Lisbon-Madrid on a section between Poceirão (outside Lisbon) and Caia (on the border with Badajoz).
The Elos consortium was led by Portuguese construction company Soares da Costa, Portugal’s Brisa, Spanish companies Dragados S.A. and Iridium Concesiones de Infraestucturas, S.A. and the US giant, Babcock Brown.
Two years later, before any work had started, the Ministry of the Economy announced the cancellation of construction of a high-speed line between Lisbon and the Spanish border.
This followed a damning report from the Court of Auditors which said the contracts for the Poceirão - Caia section were illegal.
The Elos consortium at first claimed €300 million to cover 'costs incurred in preparing the project,' but later reduced its demand to €170 million after reaching an agreement with the coalition government in 2013.
When cancelling the deal, the government said Portugal’s priority for developing international rail links was to be a new freight line between Aveiro and Sines to "strengthen the conditions for increasing the competitiveness of Portuguese exports."
The EU money already had been attached to the project and the Passos Coelho government said this would be used on 'other related projects' rather than sending it back.
