New problems loom over the public accounts of our country. Spain accumulate at least 27 complaints in international arbitration bodies such as ICSID, the World Bank, or Uncitral (UN). The sum of these claims amounts to at least 3.500 million euros, although some experts come to place them almost in the 6.000 million.
After the first ICSID opinion against Spain and in favor of the requests of the British investment fund Eiser Infrastructure Limited and its Luxembourg subsidiary Solar Energy Luxembourg, who invested almost 1.000 billion in two thermosolar plants In the provinces of Ciudad Real and Badajoz, the options are growing that new resolutions will fall against the Spanish Executive.
International funds specialized in lawsuits They have begun to analyze the possibilities of entering this business after the ICSID opinion published a few days ago. One of them, the British Therium Group Holdings Litigation It already did so last summer when it took over 100 complaints from gas station owners against Repsol, Cepsa and BP for directly or indirectly fixing the sale prices at service stations.
All this took place after the opinions of the old National Competition Commission (CNC) and subsequent files for these practices, in addition to a directive Europe, the 2014/107 / EU of damages, which had to be transposed in Spain.
And it is that these funds work on insurance. They finance lawsuits of this type, which can costr around three million euros, and, in case of winning the lawsuit, they keep a part of the amount claimed, explains Jorge Morales de Labra, an expert in the energy sector and vice president of the Renewables Foundation.
The PP Government has already introduced a provision in the State Budget bill for 2017 that authorized the use of the surplus obtained in the electricity system to finance judicial decisions.
TAXES AND FEES
According to Morales de Labra, after the decision of the High Court was known, the Popular Party introduced a amendment which extends that possibility to awards and other penalties. This is a way to avoid payment through public budgets (from the impuestos paid by citizens), with the risk of dynamiting the objective of public deficit marked by Europe; or charged to the system, that is, making the rates of all of us.
The problem is that the provision that has been included in the public accounts contravenes or, at the very least, exempts the Government from complying with the electrical law promoted by this same Executive in 2013, according to which, surpluses will be used to compensate for imbalances from previous years and outstanding debts. The surplus that has been obtained since 2014 exceeds 1.200 million; but the debt according to the CNMC system pending As of December 31, 2016, it exceeded 23.000 million.
Over the last few years, some 40.000 million euros have been invested in Spain in this sector, of which some 12.000 million came from funds, which are currently the first in resort to international arbitration bodies.
The recent ICSID award refused to include in the recognition of the claims of the British fund that has won the arbitration the losses as a result of the cuts initiated by the socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero with Miguel Sebastián as Minister of Industry;
As a basis for the calculation, it has granted 25 years of useful life, as opposed to the 40 required by the owner of the solar thermal plants. In the end he "only" recognizes 128 of the 300 million he claimed.
The resolution torpedoes the measures agreed by the Executive of Mariano Rajoy with the former Minister of Industry, the resigned José Manuel Soria; and his Secretary of State for Energy at the time, Alberto Nadal, current Secretary of State for Budgets and twin brother of the head of the new Energy portfolio, Alvaro Nadal, on which will fall all the resolutions that may be falling against the hack delivered to the remuneration of renewable energies.
