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Vittoria Shipyard threatens legal action against Romania in research vessel dispute

Vittoria Shipyard in Adria will take legal action, appealing even to the European Union, against the behavior of the Romanian institutions responsible, according to the Italian shipyard, for having delayed the signature on the contract for the construction of a marine research ship, the subject of a public tender using European funds of approximately Euros 7m and won by the Italian company.

It is been seven months since the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has officially attributed the award of the contract to Vittoria Shipyard, but the contract has not yet been signed.

The deadline for the delivery of the ship and for the use of EU funds was set for November 15.

Romania risks losing the European funding for a vessel for the Institute of Marine Research in the Black Sea, one of the most modern ever built.

Vittoria Shipyard, for its part, will look to recoup the economic damage related to the missed purchase, in addition to the incurred costs on certain supplies for the preparation of the space at the building site a loss of revenue from the freezing of new contracts must be added.

According to the lawyers of Vittoria Shipyard, both the provisions of Romanian law on the allocations of public works and supply and the provisions of the European Union were infringed. The contracting authority had no right to delay the signing of the acquisition agreement for more than seven days from the date of award of the tender.

No appeal or complaint of irregularities has been filed during the allocation process, which was attended by the specifically designated observers of the Romanian Ministry of Public Finance.

Nicola Capuzzo

Nicola is a highly qualified journalist focused on transport economics, logistics and shipping with broad experience in both online and printed media. Specialties: shipping, ship finance, banking, commodities and port economics. He regularly interviews Europe's top shipowner executives for Maritime CEO magazine.
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