One of the three main Monaco real estate construction companies, Caroli Immo, has taken the matter to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to demand that the Monaco government pay compensation of 164 million euros after the failure of a vast project.
The ECHR, which sits in Strasbourg, confirmed to AFP that it had registered the request on Monday. She will now have to determine whether it is admissible.
Contacted by AFP, the Mongasque government declared that it had taken note of this request, without further comment.
In 2020, the Supreme Court of Monaco ordered the Monegasque State to pay this company a sum of 136 million euros, plus legal interest from 2018, for the abandonment of a large-scale real estate operation known as the Esplanade. Fishermen.
Launched in 2014, this operation should have led to the construction, in the port of Monaco, of the Center for Man and the Sea, a museum intended to house the collections of the underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio. Accompanied by shops, offices and housing, this future complex was designed by architect Rudy Ricciotti.
The government then withdrew and the entrepreneur obtained his conviction before the Supreme Court, the local constitutional court whose decisions are not subject to appeal in the principality.
However, after the 2020 conviction, an agreement was found to relaunch the project and Caroli Immo waived the compensation in exchange for a timetable to launch the work.
But, according to the Caroli company in this request that AFP was able to consult, the company was forced to abandon the project (…) following numerous appeals brought by companies belonging to another Monegasque entrepreneur, against whom the The State of Monaco has not acted, Mr. Patrice Pastor.
Caroli Immo therefore carried out a unilateral termination of the amicable agreement entered into with the State in October 2023, thus reversing its waiver of litigation compensation.
But when he demanded the money from the Monegasque state, the latter did not respond, expressing its desire not to pay, according to the request.
This request comes against the backdrop of a battle for market share in real estate construction in Monaco, with the Pastor company seeing its dominance challenged by its main competitors.
Real estate prices in the microstate located on the Côte d’Azur can reach astronomical amounts, up to 120,000 euros per square meter.
This new referral to the ECHR against Monaco is the third after that of French judge Douard Levrault in 2020 following his non-renewal in the principality and, more recently, of Claude Palmero, the former administrator of crown property complaining for not having benefited from a fair trial after his dismissal.