GMR claims $803 million for terminating agreement

GMR Male’ International Airport Private Limited (GMIAL), a subsidiary of GMR Infrastructure Limited (GMR), has claimed $803 million from the Maldivian government as compensation for terminating the agreement to manage Ibrahim Nasir International Airport (INIA).

Following this, a senior government official told Sun Online that the government should not have to pay such a large sum to GMR. He said that lawyers representing the Maldivian government and Maldives Airports Company Limited (MACL) have begun efforts to analyse documents related to this case sent by GMR, which were received today.

The initial amount sought by GMR in damages from the Maldivian government, when it filed the case to the Singapore tribunal, was $1.4 billion.

In June this year, after 18 months of detailed proceedings, the tribunal’s verdict stated that the Maldivian government and MACL were jointly liable in demands to GMIAL “for loss caused by wrongful repudiation of the agreement as per the concession agreement".

The tribunal directed the Maldivian government and MACL to pay $4 million to GMIAL as compensation for legal costs within 42 days. However, the tribunal did not declare the compensation amount for the unlawful termination of the contract.

The contract to develop and manage INIA was terminated by the Maldivian government on 29 November 2012 after declaring that the concession agreement was void ab initio (invalid from the outset) due to irregularities in the bidding process.