The Council of Mallorca faces being presented with a huge damages claim by Globalvia, the company which had the contract for managing the Soller Tunnel toll system.
When the toll was scrapped in 2017, the compensation that was finally paid by the Council was 16.2 million euros. The contract still had five years to go at that time. The concession was originally until 2016, but in 2007 there was an agreement to extend it until June 2022.
The company challenged both the justification for early termination and the compensation amount. The matter was taken to court, the legal process - because of appeal by the Council - having ended at the Supreme Court in Madrid. It has now agreed with the Balearic High Court. Essentially, the courts have ruled that there was no justification for the early termination. The Council had argued that eliminating the toll was in the general interest, but the courts have rejected this because there had been an extension to the contract ten years earlier.
No amount of additional compensation has been specified, but Globalvia will now be able to make a claim. A figure of 31 million euros has been mentioned in the past, which would suggest around another 15 million euros.