Metrostav expanded its lawsuit against Prague regarding Blanka by 500 million

Prague - The construction company Metrostav has increased its lawsuit against Prague due to the Blanka tunnel by more than 500 million crowns. The claimed amount for unpaid invoices now totals 2.7 billion crowns. These are invoices that are overdue. This was stated today by Metrostav spokesman František Polák in response to a query from ČTK. The next hearing at the arbitration court will be on March 10.
The original claimed amount of over 2.1 billion crowns was for work that Metrostav completed up to October. "The increase pertains to invoices overdue for work carried out in November and early December," Polák said.
The dispute reached the arbitration court after Metrostav halted the construction of the tunnel on December 7 of last year. The main reasons are unpaid invoices, as well as the fact that Prague, as the investor, did not approve the subsequent work. According to Metrostav, this meant that the builders could not continue with the construction. The city entered arbitration due to concerns that the contracts with Metrostav were invalid. While it has the money for the invoices, it is worried that it cannot legally pay them.
Blanka, which is expected to cost Prague about 36 billion crowns, was originally supposed to serve drivers back in 2011. The deadline was later postponed to spring 2014, and now Mayor Tomáš Hudeček (TOP 09) talks about the end of summer. "A deadline simply cannot be established; we cannot specify a date," the mayor said at today’s council meeting.
According to information from this week, the autumn halt of construction is being investigated by the anti-corruption police. The case is also being addressed by the Organized Crime Detection Unit (ÚOOZ) since last summer. However, according to Prague, this unit is acting contradictorily as it is investigating the city's decisions regarding addendums to the contract, which actually allowed the continuation of the construction. Due to this discrepancy, Prague has turned to Justice Minister Helena Válková.