ECHR rules in favor of Turkish company in compensation claims

PARIS

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered a Turkish construction company, Ünal Akpınar İnşaat İmalat Sanayi ve Ticaret, to be given 1 million euros in pecuniary damages due to its losses on a project in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa. 

In July 1981 the Water Board, an administrative entity of the Turkish Energy Ministry, issued a public call for tenders for the construction of the Şanlıurfa aqueduct as part of the Southeast Anatolia Development Project (GAP), according to a written statement on Sept. 8 by the court. 

A contract was duly signed between the authorities and the applicant company, but a few years later the applicant company suspended the work on the grounds that the terms of the contract no longer corresponded to the unforeseeable economic fluctuations that had occurred in the meantime, according to the statement. 

“In proceedings brought against the authorities for the recovery of debts and damages, the Turkish courts awarded various sums to the applicant company, before delivering its final judgment on Dec. 30, 2004.

Relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (on the protection of property) to the ECHR, the applicant company alleged that the authorities had waited until the proceedings had definitively ended before paying it a derisory sum that could not offset the losses incurred as a result of inflation and exchange-rate fluctuations,” said the court. 

“In its principal judgment of May 26, 2009, the court held that there had been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. Today’s judgment concerned the question of just satisfaction (Article 41 of the Convention),” it added. 

The just satisfaction was announced as 1 million euros for pecuniary damage as well as 5,000 euros for non-pecuniary damages.