EDP asks for 546 million euros in new lawsuit against the Portuguese state
The newspaper Expresso reports that the electric company's action against the Portuguese state and the institute that manages the national debt.
EDP sued the Portuguese government again in a lawsuit that was filed this Monday at the Lisbon Administrative Court. The news was advanced by Expresso this Tuesday, which explains that the electric company is claiming compensation of 546.4 million euros for an alleged error in the company’s evaluation while it was still public.
The same newspaper says the reason is the hydrological fund. This is a fund that, in the past, served to amortize the impact of droughts on the national electricity system and that has already motivated another lawsuit by EDP against the state in December of last year. At issue is an instrument called the “hydrological correction account”, to which EDP will have contributed since 1986. The fund existed because the driest years have a negative impact on dams, which increases the use of thermoelectric power, raising energy prices.
In 2010 the political decision was taken to extinguish the mechanism by 2016 and to evaluate what to do with the final balance. EDP complains of an overvaluation made by the state that will have harmed the new shareholders that entered the capital after the reprivatization. The company, led by Miguel Stilwell d’Andrade, is, therefore, asking to be reimbursed 546,384,057.77 euros in the process which, according to Expresso, is being sued by the state, the Ministry of Finance and the Treasury and Public Debt Management Agency – IGCP.
