The administration of the Tocumen International Airport hired the law firm Morgan & Morgan under the exceptional procedure to defend itself from an arbitration filed in the Center for Conciliation and Arbitration of Panama (CeCAP) by the company Norberto Odebrecht (CNO).
The hiring of the firm is for $695,500 and will last 18 months.
Brazil’s CNO is asking that Tocumen SA be forced to pay it $19.4 million as part of the claims.
Tocumen and CNO signed contract 038/12, modified by the parties through eight addenda, for the execution of the Tocumen International Airport expansion program, whose total amount is $917 million.
In accordance with the first clause of addendum 8, which modifies the third clause of the contract, which refers to the scope of the work, September 30, 2021 was established as the final delivery date for the works.
Tocumen, according to information in the justification for the contract, began the process of administrative resolution of the contract, due to “non-compliance with the contractual obligations arising from addendum 8 and the original scope of the contract.”
On September 14, 2021, according to the official documentation, the notice of the intention to administratively terminate the contract was issued, which was notified at the CNO offices and published in the Panamacompra electronic system.
After the discharges made by CNO, against Tocumen, resolution 065AL21 of September 28, 2021 was issued, which administratively resolves the contract.
The construction company maintains that it is not responsible for any delay and blames Tocumen for the delay in the execution of the works due to non-compliance with the payment schedule.
The contract establishes that the contractor may appeal or present, at any time, an arbitration claim before the Conciliation and Arbitration Center, for objecting in addition to the administrative resolution of the contract, considering it illegal. On November 30, 2021, the claim action was reported.
In the process presented before the conciliation center, the Brazilian company requests that it be declared that Tocumen failed to comply with the terms of the contract and that it be ordered to pay the interest that the company’s permanence in the project has caused.
The company stated in September that “the project has a construction progress of 99.9%. CNO completed the substantial delivery of the Work in February 2020. The Terminal is operating”.
“AITSA maintains a delay in the payments due to CNO, directly impacting the execution of the work. CNO will assert in a timely manner before the corresponding instances, its rights in relation to AITSA’s resolution. That said, CNO wishes and hopes that the constructive dialogue in search of solutions will be resumed, “says OEC Panama, in the statement at the time.
