<UOHS> has temporarily prohibited the joint venture for the development of <Nádraží Holešovice>

Brno - The Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS) has prohibited the Prague Public Transit Company (DPP) from concluding a planned shareholder agreement and establishing a joint venture for the development of the Nádraží Holešovice metro station with a preliminary measure. This follows from the text of the antitrust authority's decision on Wednesday. DPP wanted to cooperate with the company Nové Holešovice Development, controlled by the Karlín Group. The real estate group CPI Property Group, owned by billionaire Radovan Vitek, filed a complaint against this with the authority.

CPI is interested in the land near the Nádraží Holešovice station and believes that the transit company should announce a tender for it. DPP has so far refused, stating that it wouldn't make sense to partner with a company that owns no land around the station. Several plots of land around the station are owned by Karlín Group, making an agreement with it a logical step, according to representatives of the enterprise. However, CPI announced today that it has acquired a one-hectare plot near the northern vestibule of the station for more than 725 million crowns.

The authority has been reviewing the planned agreement between DPP and Nové Holešovice Development since the beginning of this November. CPI filed a complaint against it because, according to them, DPP inadequately addressed their objections to the conclusion of the shareholder agreement. According to the law, companies may not finalize the agreement 60 days after ÚOHS has started to deal with it. This deadline will expire on January 3, 2020, and ÚOHS will not be able to decide by then, as both parties could express their opinions on the documentation for the administrative proceedings until mid-December.

Therefore, ÚOHS issued a preliminary measure so that the purpose of the administrative proceedings they are conducting is not thwarted. Now both parties must wait to conclude the agreement until the authority makes a definitive decision.

CPI criticizes the planned joint venture for the development of the Nádraží Holešovice station and its surroundings. The joint project of DPP and Nové Holešovice Development includes the renovation of the northern vestibule of the metro station and the construction of administrative and residential buildings in the vicinity. DPP owns land at the station, which, according to representatives of the city and the company, is undevelopable without an agreement with the owners of adjacent parcels.

The plan for the joint venture has caused tensions in the leadership of Prague. Along with the opposition, it is being criticized by the coalition United Forces for Prague (TOP 09 and STAN). The Prague Public Transit Company, at the request of the mayor's deputy Adam Scheinherr (Praha Sobě), commissioned the preparation of two independent analyses of the procedures and conditions of the planned joint venture. DPP has already commissioned legal analyses in the past, which concluded that the company's actions are in order.