The Central Administrative Court of Contractual Appeals (TACRC) has rejected the appeal filed by Iberia because, in its opinion, it lacks jurisdiction, according to the resolution released this Friday to the appeal that Europa Press has had access to. The appeal denounces the awarding of several lots in the Aena ramp competition.
The reduced party has confirmed that in view of this decision of the Court, “it will appeal to the competent authority, the National Court, requesting, on the one hand, the suspension of the award of the contract and, on the other, the annulment of the resolution of the TACRC so that that court can rule on the merits of the matter and annul the award of the driving competition.”
The TACRC decided to maintain the suspension of the contracting file on November 7, alleging that: “the analysis of the reasons underlying the filing of the appeal shows that the damages that could arise from lifting the suspension are difficult or impossible. repair.” For this reason, Iberia is going to request the National Court to adopt the precautionary measure of suspension of the Aena competition until the appeal is resolved.
The court’s decision does not go into assessing the substance of the matter or the irregularities that Iberia denounces in its appeal, but rejects the dryer’s argument that the management competition is comparable to a public service contract or a service concession.
It is, according to the TACRC, “a legal relationship of a special nature governed by its specific regulations”, which is why this administrative body dependent on the Ministry of Finance assures that “it lacks jurisdiction to resolve the claim raised, which leads to “A ruling of inadmissibility of the appeal.”
Iberia criticizes the procedure and denounces irregularities
Iberia presented the challenge to the tender on October 20, almost a month after its resolution, after losing the license for eight of its main airports and considering that there were “irregularities” in the award.
The airline, until now the leader in handling services in Spain, based its claim on the fact that, in its opinion, “the legal procedure for processing the file” had been violated, which had caused its “defenselessness.” In her opinion, Aena’s resolution had not been sufficiently argued in favor of confidentiality, which is why Iberia was denied “access to sufficient information to know the motivation for the evaluations.”
From the point of view of the Spanish dryer of the IAG group, the little information to which Iberia had had access revealed “obvious irregularities that have an impact on the evaluations.” Furthermore, he argued that essential issues such as “the coherence between the business plan and the technical offer” have not been analyzed.
At the beginning of November, the TACRC admitted the precautionary suspension of the award until it resolves the merits of the matter. Barely a month later, the final resolution has arrived, and after it the airport manager could sign the contracts with the different successful bidders.
Iberia’s appeal contains strong criticism against the procedure carried out by Aena, which it accuses of falsifying the award with a “technical report that is not exactly such” and that was limited to a PowerPoint presentation of 188 slides “that did not “It includes no type of motivation regarding the application of the criteria subject to value judgment, nor of the direct elimination criteria (some of which also required value judgment).”
“It is a new crude attempt to, through the mere accumulation of paper, attempt to generate the appearance of a voluminous expression of reasons for the award when there is nothing about it,” Iberia warned.
As stated in the TACRC resolution, once the administrative route has been exhausted, Iberia must now bring its claim before judicial authorities, filing a contentious-administrative appeal before the Contentious-administrative Chamber of the National Court, within a period of two months. It is since the receipt of the notification that occurred this December 1, according to the newspaper ‘El País’.
The TACRC resolution also “lifts the suspension of the contracting procedure”, after this same body interrupted it until the appeal filed by the dryer was resolved and thus avoided more serious damages. Likewise, the judicial body chooses not to fine Iberia by not “appreciating the concurrence of bad faith or recklessness in the filing of the claim.”
In addition to Iberia, the result was also challenged by the UGT and CCOO unions, in this case because they understand that compliance with the labor obligations derived from the sector agreement by the winning companies cannot be guaranteed.
The unions present in the Iberia holding company feared the worsening of working conditions, which is why UGT had called a strike for the Constitution Bridge that was finally called off last Wednesday.
The company has suffered significant losses
The initial result of the contest, which was announced in September, was a severe blow to Iberia’s business, which lost all the large aerodromes where it was present for passenger traffic, except for Madrid-Barajas. Iberia Airport Services gave up the airports of Barcelona-El Prat, Palma de Mallorca, Málaga, Alicante, Gran Canaria, Tenerife South, Ibiza and Bilbao, although it gained other small and medium-sized airports such as Zaragoza, Valladolid, Burgos, Huesca, Logroño, Salamanca . , Almería and Murcia.
When the result was announced, Iberia expressed its rejection and “perplexity”, and assured that it would request a review of the evaluations and that it would take “appropriate actions.” “The qualification and competitiveness demonstrated by Iberia Airport Services, which, over the last seven years, has carried out a profound transformation and has continued to significantly add new clients to its portfolio with a high degree of satisfaction, has not been reflected in the result of this contest,” expresses the company run by Fernando Candela.
The tender, which will allow the operation of the service for a period of seven years, has a value of more than 5,000 million euros in revenue, and has been awarded to 15 of the 17 large groups, both national and international, which submitted 168 offers. .
The groups that benefited the most from the award are Groundfource, owned by Globalia (parent of Air Europa), which has obtained 12 licenses for 12 airports, maintaining those with the highest traffic (Madrid, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Málaga, Alicante, Gran Canaria, Valencia, Ibiza, Lanzarote, Zaragoza, Fuerteventura and Bilbao); the Belgian Aviapartner, which obtains 13 licenses in 15 airports and launches in Madrid, Barcelona and Alicante; and the British Menzies, with seven licenses in seven airports.
The new licenses will come into force during the first months of 2024, before the summer season. In the Canary Islands they will start months later, since the high season on the islands is winter.
