LAT: Litgrid and Enersense dispute over 12 million EUR more expensive works return to arbitration | Business

On March 28, the LAT decided that the arbitration court has the competence to examine the dispute when the contracts were concluded through public procurement. The LAT upheld the ruling of the Lithuanian Court of Appeal of November 2023, by which it upheld the partial decision of the arbitration in July 2023. The latter rejected Litgrid’s request to recognize that the arbitration does not have such competence.

“The panel of judges has no reason to disagree with the conclusion of the appealed ruling that the calculation (recalculation) of the contract price according to the pricing rules set out in the contract itself can be qualified as the performance of the contract, and not the change of the terms (price) of the contract,” decided LAT.

“Litgrid” told the court that disputes regarding changes to public procurement contracts cannot be considered by arbitration.

“The dispute might be qualified as arising not from changing the essential conditions of the public procurement contract, but from the performance of the contract, only if the specific conditions for changing the contract had been determined in procurement documents made public in advance, and not in subsequent documents signed during the performance of the contract” , Litgrid said.

“The claims in the arbitration case, although formulated as claims for changing the price and terms of the contract, according to their factual basis are basically claims for recalculation of the price and extension of the terms in accordance with the conditions set in the contract and the agreements replacing them”, decided LAT.

Last April, Enersence asked the Vilnius Commercial Arbitration Court to change the contract price between it and Litgrid.

In January 2021, the companies signed a contract for the design and construction of the reconstruction of the 330 kV single-circuit overhead line Klaipėda-Grobinė into a double-circuit, its value was 14.8 million. EUR, but Enersence aims to increase the price to 18.2 million. euros.

In addition, in March 2020, companies signed 16.5 million EUR contract for the reconstruction of the 330 kV single-circuit overhead line Jurbarkas-Bitėnai into a double-circuit – “Enersence” seeks to increase the price to 24.9 million. euros.

Enersence also asked for a six-month extension of both contracts.