A reversal at the Council of State: a re-bid for the Civitavecchia marina.
At the Council of State, the Port Authority and Marina Roma Yachting lose against Porto Storico Srl for the concession of moorings in the heart of the Lazio port.
"In acceptance of the aforementioned grounds and for the decisive reasons set forth, all the documents challenged in the first instance must be annulled, absorbing all remaining issues raised here by the appellant in the other grounds and correspondingly objected to by his opponents in the present proceedings, which are entirely superfluous for the purposes of deciding on a legal level, with the regression of the proceedings to its initial phase, that is, to that of publication of the application, as provided for by art. 4 of Presidential Decree no. 509 of 1997."
With these words The Council of State almost entirely accepts the appeal filed by the company Porto Storico Srl headed by the Genoese Giulio Schenone in the long administrative dispute against the Civitavecchia Port Authority and the company Marina Roma Yachting Srl for the assignment of berths for superyachts in the Lazio port.
The case began in the autumn of 2015 when Porto Storico submitted an application for a maritime state concession covering the state-owned maritime assets and bodies of water constituting the historic basin of the port of Civitavecchia, as well as their appurtenances. The purpose of the concession was to build and manage "a tourist marina and related complementary and ancillary activities, including hospitality, cultural activities (for the protection and enhancement of assets of artistic, historical, and architectural significance), commercial activities (shops, catering services), technical activities, and administrative activities (offices, services for boaters and crews, and storage)."
A few months later, "with the provision of the Port System Authority of 22 April 2016, it was announced that four competing applications had been received, including (dated 5 April 2016), established only on 23 March 2016 and controlled by Port Mobility spa, which holds 70% of the share capital and has designated its legal representative (Dr. Guido Azzopardi) as President".
In their ruling, the judges of the Council of State wrote that "the acceptance of the bid submitted by Roma Marina irreparably distorted from the outset the evaluation that the services conference was required to carry out, pursuant to Article 5 of Presidential Decree No. 509 of 1997, making it necessary to reopen the competitive process among all interested parties and conduct a calm, impartial, complete, and exhaustive reassessment by all competent administrations—including the Port System Authority itself—pursuant to Article 5 of the same Presidential Decree No. 509 of 1997, of the same application submitted by Porto Storico as early as 2017."
According to the judges, "reopening the competitive process through a new publication of the Historic Port application is necessary as the latter has not raised adequate objections to contest the shortcomings identified in its project proposals during the conference."
The Council of State emphasizes that it already clarified in a 2019 ruling "that there is no possibility or possibility of derogating from the principle of competitive bidding for the purposes of granting state concessions for maritime state property for the construction of recreational boating facilities." Furthermore, it adds that "the Port System Authority will therefore re-order the publication of the application for the Historic Port of Civitavecchia, as it had previously done, [...] while first granting the Historic Port itself a reasonable deadline for any changes, taking into account the time that has passed." “This preliminary step prior to publication, which is necessary for compliance purposes, will be carried out within twenty days of notification or, if earlier, of administrative communication of this ruling,” orders the Council of State, adding that, “following this step, the Authority will finally proceed with the new publication, within a period that cannot be less than thirty nor more than ninety days […] and starting from the submission of the new proposal or from confirmation by Porto Storico of the previous proposal.
The game for the marina and the reception of superyachts in the port of Civitavecchia is therefore open again.
