Sofia Airport Sentenced to Pay USD 38 M to Kuwaiti Consortium

Transport Minister Ivaylo Moskovski has announced that Soifia Airport will have to pay USD 38 M to a Kuwaiti consortium over a lost arbitration case. Photo by BGNES

Sofia Airport will have to pay USD 38 M to the Kuwaiti company which built the runway on Terminal 2, said Transport Minister Ivaylo Moskovski.

"We received a letter saying that the Kuwaiti consortium had won an arbitration in Paris and Sofia Airport would have to pay USD 38 M. This technically deprives the airport of the opportunity to reinvest in in its development," Moskovski stated in a Wednesday interview for Bulgaria On Air The business magazine.

The sum that Sofia Airport has been sentenced to pay is almost three times greater than its 2010 profit, which amounted to EUR 14 M.

Kuwaiti consortium Mohammed Abdulmohsin Al-Kharafi and Sons built the runway on the new terminal.

The financing for the project was secured in the form of a loan of around USD 40 M from the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development.

The site was unveiled behind schedule in August 2006, with the Kuwaiti company demanding USD 20 M in compensation for the delayed obtaining of the construction permit and the unforeseen expenses.

The Transport Ministry, which was then headed by Petar Mutafchiev, refused to acknowledge the unforeseen expenses, saying that the consortium had not presented the invoices, and filed a counterclaim with the International Court of Arbitration.

The decision of the Paris-based court is final and cannot be appealed.

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