The court extends the dredging contract for the Port of Santos until April

The Federal Regional Court of the 3rd Region determined that the contract signed between DTA Engenharia and Santos Port Authority (SPA) for the dredging of the Port of Santos is valid until April. The judges decided that the deadline should be counted from signing the service order of April 28, 2020.

Due to the suspension of dredging services at the beginning of the month, the mooring berths lost their depth. If the works are not resumed, the Justice has decided to levy daily fines of R$ 100,000 on DTA.

The company complied with the decision but is stuck in a stalemate with SPA. DTA argues that the dredging contract runs until April 2022 exclusively because SPA delayed endorsing the contract in the first place two years ago. On the other hand, SPA believes that the contract should have terminated on January 8, 2022.

According to the DTA, the port authority arbitrarily canceled the commitment made with the company, forcing it to demobilize the dredging equipment. As a result, services were paralyzed and have not been resumed ever since.

On February 10, the three judges that compose the Federal Regional Court of the 3rd Region decided that the contract period must be counted from the signature of the service order of April 28, 2020. The term is 24 months, extendable to 60 months.

DTA

In a note, DTA said that the court decision shows that SPA errs on primary issues, trying to evade its payment obligations. The maintenance of the contract makes SPA bear the responsibility of honoring its commitments.

The DTA also stated that it will not be at the mercy of SPA’s arbitrariness, which will result in new legal actions. “Unfortunately, the Judicial system ends up overburdened by this port authority’s actions of evading obligations and responsibilities, always dithering and looking for excuses for its own mistakes,” the company stated.

SPA

Santos Port Authority (SPA) said it will appeal the decision in a statement. However, according to SPA, it does not change the current situation, in which the judgment of the 2nd Civil Court of Santos determined that DTA complies with the contract in force.

Following this court order, issued on January 31, the company DTA resumed dredging work at the TGG berth on February 4. (left bank). On the other hand, the dredging equipment required repairs and was removed. In the event of new equipment breakdowns, in addition to DTA’s low productivity, it will be challenging to adhere to the schedule with the lessees.

SPA reiterated that it has acted diligently on the technical, administrative, and judicial fronts to ensure that DTA fulfills the work orders and carries out the dredging with adequate productivity to avoid further draft losses.

Source: G1

To read the full original article please see the link:

https://g1.globo.com/sp/santos-regiao/porto-mar/noticia/2022/02/12/justica-mantem-ate-abril-contrato-de-dragagem-do-porto-de-santos.ghtml

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