The court will decide who owns the railway station's Fantova building

Prague - The court will today decide on the lawsuit of Grandi Stazioni, which aims to determine whether the Fantova building at Prague's main train station belongs to Czech Railways or the Railway Administration (SŽDC). Last year, the Railways sold the main station to SŽDC, which then terminated its collaboration with the Italian company. The company subsequently filed four lawsuits against the state and state-owned enterprises.

Grandi Stazioni was supposed to be leasing the main station for 30 years based on a contract from 2003, if it managed to reconstruct the entire building by October 16 of last year. However, it failed to do so, and SŽDC subsequently refused to extend the lease. The action of the railway administration sparked legal disputes and halted the reconstruction.

In addition to the ownership of the historic Fantova building, Grandi Stazioni contested the transfer of the new check-in hall to the railway administration. The third lawsuit concerns compensation of more than 770 million crowns as reimbursement for invested funds during the station's reconstruction.

Of this amount, SŽDC paid the company 565 million crowns last year as eligible costs for the partial reconstruction of the station. The company then reduced the requested amount to approximately 210 million crowns. In the final lawsuit, the company is seeking about 1.26 billion crowns for lost profits from further leasing of station premises.