The court dismissed the lawsuit regarding the contract between Prostějov and the company Manthellan

Prostějov - The Regional Court in Brno today dismissed the lawsuit of the company Prior - department stores, which sought to invalidate the contract between the Prostějov city hall and the firm Manthellan regarding the planned construction of the new department store Galerie Prostějov. There is no appeal against the decision of the regional court, and Manthellan can continue the project preparations, said Juraj Aláč, spokesperson for the Galerie Prostějov project, to ČTK today. ČTK is obtaining a statement from the company Prior - department stores.

The cancellation of the contract was requested by the company Prior - department stores, which recently renovated the old department store Prior in Prostějov. Its management justified the lawsuit by claiming a discrepancy between the conditions of the tender for the construction of the new shopping center and the subsequent contract with the company Manthellan, which won the tender. However, the city hall asserts that the contract is valid.

The District Court ruled in May last year in favor of Prior - department stores and determined that the future contract between Manthellan and the city is invalid. According to Judge Josef Růžička, the content of the contract does not correspond to the purpose for which the intention was announced. "Moreover, Prostějov is bound by the content of the intention," he stated.

Both the city hall and Manthellan appealed against the District Court's ruling. "We welcomed the (regional) court's decision; we have always believed that the higher court would accept our appeal, and we are pleased that we can continue with the project preparations. However, we will only be able to specify the next concrete steps after the written version of the judgment is prepared and delivered," said Lukáš Čepelka, project manager for Galerie Prostějov.

The dispute concerned the city hall's procedures in preparing the project. While the tender conditions included a commitment that the investment would also include the construction of a community center for at least 500 people, this was not mentioned in the signed contract with Manthellan. Adolf Vlk, the director of Prior - department stores, claims that applicants for this project did not have equal conditions due to this.

However, according to Aláč, the regional court had a different opinion on the dispute. "The appellate court changed the decision (of the district court) so that the lawsuit was definitively dismissed. According to the appellate court, Prior did not have an urgent legal interest in determining the invalidity of the contract, and its lawsuit was vexatious," Aláč stated.

Manthellan had previously threatened the city hall with a lawsuit for damages of up to half a billion due to problems with the planned construction of the Galerie Prostějov shopping center. Manthellan's lawyers claim that the city violated the contract for project preparation and made it impossible to build the shopping center by approving a new zoning plan. Therefore, the councilors approved a change to the zoning plan last autumn. The investor then confirmed that it continues project preparations and withdrew the lawsuit.

Galerie Prostějov is to be built in the city center at the site of the cultural house. The project was prepared by a group of investors who built the Šantovka shopping center in Olomouc. Some residents of the city oppose the construction of Galerie Prostějov.