The High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) has upheld the compensation of 442,102 euros that the Paeria of Lleida paid to the former municipal radar concessionaire, a joint venture formed by Sice and Arnó. This sum corresponds to the lack of use of the mobile speed camera during a significant part of the contract's validity, between 2013 and early 2019. Furthermore, the court partially upheld the firm's appeal, obliging Lleida City Council to add legal interest generated since the sentence notification, estimated at around 50,000 euros. This brings the total litigation cost for municipal coffers to nearly 500,000 euros.
The dispute stems from the contract awarded in 2013, during the tenure of former mayor Àngel Ros (PSC), for the management of traffic control and road safety systems in Lleida. The concessionaire's remuneration partly depended on revenue from traffic fines. After years of legal battles, a contentious court concluded that the Paeria had breached the contract, as the mobile radar installed in the Guardia Urbana vehicle was barely used, thus altering the economic balance of the agreement.
The original ruling by the contentious administrative court number 1 of Lleida in 2021, confirmed by the TSJC and finalized after the Supreme Court dismissed the municipal appeal, ordered the company to be compensated. The amount was based on the income generated by the onboard radar in 2016 for each year the device was not used, excluding the last fifteen days of 2013 and February 2019.
Following this criterion, the Paeria approved in July 2024 a settlement of 442,102.50 euros. The calculation was based on a technical report indicating that the mobile radar generated 358,100 euros in fines in 2016, of which 108,270 euros corresponded to the concessionaire according to the contractual percentage. Multiplying this amount by the four years and one month of the radar's inactivity, the City Council reached the final figure and proposed a payment in installments.
The UTE Mobilitat Lleida challenged this settlement, arguing that the sentence recognized compensation for contractual breach rather than a simple economic adjustment. The company claimed 2.34 million euros, or alternatively 992,475 euros, based on extrapolating the device's potential performance.
The TSJC rejected this approach, emphasizing that the original ruling referred to "economic compensation" to restore the contractual balance, not an indemnity. The court confirms the 442,102.50 euros already paid by the Paeria, limiting the execution to the judicial terms.
The court also dismissed the concessionaire's claim for default interest. However, it partially upheld the appeal regarding statutory interest. The TSJC concludes that, as the amount is liquid and determinable, the City Council must pay legal interest from the notification of the first-instance ruling, on September 16, 2021, until the effective deposit of the agreed amounts.
The sentence does not impose costs on either party and can still be appealed to the Supreme Court.
This resolution adds to another previous litigation between the TSJC and the same UTE Mobilitat Lleida, related to the same municipal radar contract. In that case, the UTE challenged four settlements totaling 243,474 euros for postal notification costs of fines processed between 2016 and 2019. The company considered the amounts disproportionate, but the TSJC confirmed the inadmissibility of the appeal due to arguments about economic imbalance not previously raised administratively.
