Silver Account Terminal (TCP) —company made up of Katoen Natie with 80% and the ANP with the remaining 20%— went out to respond to the senators of the Broad Front (FA) and considered that their arguments are based “on defending Montecon ignoring irregularities of which they have full eat”.
Montecon is the operator of the public docks of the port of Montevideo, while TCP is the firm with which the State agreed to extend the concession of the specialized container terminal for 50 years, until 2081 in exchange for a millionaire investment contract. This Tuesday, Senators Mario Bergara and Charles Carreras raised an extension of a complaint that had previously been filed with the Third Shift Economic Crimes Prosecutor’s Office.
Through a statement, the public-private company TCP, maintained that Montecon “illegitimately used public spaces, received tariff subsidies, and carried out discriminatory practices against its competitors, to the detriment of TCP and public coffers“.
In this sense, TCP considered that the senators of the FA “repeat almost verbatim the arguments put forward by the Montecon company” in its nullity action against Decrees 114/021 and 115/021 of last December 1st. The legislators also indicated that TCP “accredited” in its 2001 Business Plan that “the regime of free competition” was in force in the port of Montevideo and, furthermore, “it undertook to respect it.”
In its statement, TCP denied these claims and recalls that the Market Study and Traffic Projection —prepared in March 2001 by the CPA consulting firm— was carried out before the enactment of the TCP regulation decree” and that there is no “ accreditation” or “commitment”, but rather an evaluation of the future activity of the specialized terminal “which did not yet exist”.
In turn, TCP maintains that it did not need to “prove” or “commit” anything, since the company never questioned -neither in its innumerable claims before the ANP, nor on the occasion of announcing the sale of its share package, nor when putting The international arbitration mechanism was launched, nor when the February 2021 agreement was signed—the principle of free port competition, enshrined in the 1992 Ports Law.
“The senators know very well (because TCP has documented it on numerous occasions and before all public authorities) that what the company questioned and questions today is that this principle of free competition, regulated in the port area of Montevideo by the Law, its regulatory decrees and especially the Port Operations Regulations of 1994, has been insistently ignored by Montecon, benefited from the illegitimate use of public spaces, tariff subsidies, and discriminatory practices against its competitors in public areas, to the detriment of TCP and of the public coffers”, they express from TCP.
And they add: “And the senators know very well that the specialization of terminals such as the container operation is entirely consistent with free competition in multipurpose public areas, since it is based on a priority that is neither exclusive nor excluding.”
From TCP they stated that “It is astonishing that legislators to whom citizens entrust the informed and serene analysis of public issues use the reports that are under judicial scrutiny for the purpose of promoting private business interests against a company in which Uruguay is a shareholder, incurring in the absurdity of trying to penalize administrative processes, or hide knowledge of irregularities that have been denounced and of which they are fully aware”.
