Agreement ends legal disputes, sets out the amounts of the main past imbalances, but outstanding values remain open; next another round of negotiations will be required

01/12/2024

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With the signing of the agreement, Arteris puts an end to multi-billion disputes with the São Paulo government — Foto: Julio Bittencourt

With a delay of more than a year, Arteris and the government of São Paulo reached an agreement to resolve the road concessionaire’s long-standing liabilities in the state. The amendment extends until December 2039 the Intervias contract, which would expire in 2028. The agreement may also include new obligations — another round of negotiations will be required to decide on the final amount owed by the concessionaire to the state, which could result in discounts for users of the automatic payment system, among other compensating measures.

The preliminary agreement had been signed in September 2022 with the previous administration. The parties had expected to reach a final agreement within 120 days, which did not happen. Negotiations dragged on even longer, given the change of administration in 2023. The final agreement was signed on Wednesday (10) and announced on Thursday.

It ends legal disputes, sets out the amounts of the main past imbalances, but outstanding values remain open — which should be decided in a next stage of negotiations.

For the agreement, the parties carried out a set-off of their accounts, considering credits in favor of the government and the concessionaires. In the end, the negotiation led to the extension of the Intervias contract, as a way of offsetting imbalances in favor of the company.

However, there is still an outstanding credit in favor of the state in the amount of R$426.5 million, which has to be offset. The final amount remains to be defined since other imbalances are pending resolutions, which could change the balance.

With the signing of the agreement, Arteris puts an end to multi-billion disputes with the São Paulo government, which had been going on for decades. The disputes also involved three other concessionaires by Arteris, in addition to Intervias: ViaNorte, Autovias, and Centrovias. Those, however, have been resolved, between 2018 and 2020.

The main dispute was created in 2006, when the Claudio Lembo’s administration signed contractual amendments extending the terms of multiple highway concessions. However, years later, the São Paulo government reviewed the agreements and decided to cancel the extensions, which triggered legal disputes with companies in the sector. In addition to this emblematic case, other disputes remained open.

In addition to Arteris, Ecorodovias and CCR had already reached agreements with the São Paulo government, between 2021 and 2022, in which they also ended regulatory disputes and obtained the extension of concessions, in exchange for including construction work.

For Arteris, that is a crucial step towards resolving its regulatory liabilities. The company still has another important standoff pending: Autopista Fluminense. The federal concession, which has been accumulating problems, has even agreed upon a re-tender, but is currently undergoing renegotiations with the federal government and the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) to be able to continue operations under the contract, with new terms.

According to industry analysts, solving regulatory problems may pave the way for a definition of the future of Arteris, which has already been put up for sale by its owners, Brookfield and Abertis, unsuccessfully. In the market, the general opinion is that liabilities are bringing down the company’s value. Amid the disputes, the company was left out of the road auctions held in recent years. The last concession won by the group was Rodovia dos Calçados, in 2017.

*Por Taís Hirata — São Paulo

Source: Valor International

https://valorinternational.globo.com/