Hamović would like the state's counterclaim to be annulled

The company "Universal Monte" asked the Commercial Court to reject as unfounded the state's counterclaim that the mutual termination of the contract on the construction, operation and transfer (BOT arrangement) of the Meljine - Petijevići road be declared invalid.

Contract with the company, behind which stands a Serbian businessman Vuk Hamovic, which built the Meljine - Petijevići road in 2008 under an arrangement based on which it was supposed to use it for 20 years and return it to the ownership of the Municipality of Herceg Novi, was terminated by agreement on May 7, 2021, by the Government of the Prime Minister Zdravka Krivokapića, after which the toll on this section stopped being collected.

At that time, the government tasked the Ministry of Finance and Social Welfare to provide four million euros in the budget for the following year for payment to "Univerzal Monte", due to the premature termination of the contract, and the ministry he managed Milojko Spajic it didn't do that. Instead, at the last session of the former Government on April 20 of last year, a conclusion was reached, instructing the relevant ministry to pay this money from the budget reserve. That obligation of the Government Dritan Abazović did not perform, but forwarded the documentation related to this work to the Special State Prosecutor's Office, while "Universal Monte" initiated a lawsuit against the state demanding the payment of four million plus VAT.

Substitute for property-legal interests of the state Slavica Laković in the counterclaim, she stated that she considers the consensual termination null and void because Krivokapić's Government could not, based on the conclusion, obligate itself to pay the money to the company "Univezal Monte" without previously complying with the procedure stipulated by the Budget Law. She emphasized that the mutual termination is considered null and void because the payment of the budget reserve can only be made with the consent of the Government.

In response to the counterclaim, the lawyer "Universal Monte" Mladen Ivanovic stated that Laković did not refer to any legal provision on which she bases her request.

He stated that the mutual termination of the contract was concluded with the consent of both parties in the proceedings, and therefore the state cannot invoke the grounds of nullity, "because everything, even if it existed, was just hidden".

"If the state, when concluding the mutual termination, violated some legal prohibition related to the obligation to pay the contracted four million, it must bear the possible consequences itself, because it itself caused them," the answer states.

At yesterday's final preparatory hearing regarding this dispute, the representative of the state proposed to the Commercial Court a construction expert in order to determine the quality and value of the works that "Univerzal Monte" performed on the entire section of the road in accordance with the construction agreement from 2007.

This was opposed by Ivanovic, who emphasized that the company's obligation under the mutual termination from 2021 was to repair part of the road in the town of Kotobilj at its own expense, as well as to submit the available documentation for the road, which, as he stated, was done.

"If the court orders an expert opinion, we believe that it can only refer to the contractual obligation of the plaintiff from the Agreement on termination, i.e. rehabilitation of the Kotobilj road", he stated.

The court will rule on expert testimony and all other evidence presented during the main hearing, which begins in early June.