AN OUT-OF-COURT compensation settlement was signed on July 7 between the town of Rimavská Sobota and the German car-parts manufacturer Dräxlmaier.
The foreign investor, which originally planned to produce car components in Rimavská Sobota but decided to not to at the last minute, will pay the town Sk9 million (€234,222) in compensation for the costs of preparing the investment, the mayor of Rimavská Sobota, Štefan Cifruš, told the TASR news agency.
Although the town originally asked for more, the mayor said he was content with the results.
The company compensated the town for Sk1.5 million in expenses related to project preparation.
The town claimed a further Sk13 million in expenses for the purchase of land, but the investor agreed to only half this sum. "The town likely wouldn't have recovered part of the costs of buying the land by going to court because it got the land back," the mayor said.
According to Cifruš, the main question remains the amount of non-material damages, which the town estimated at Sk30 million, whereas Dräxlmaier agreed to pay only Sk1 million. "No one can predict what standpoint an arbitration court might take," the mayor said.
Rimavská Sobota lost the Sk700-million Dräxlmaier investment in the middle of May. The car components supplier was supposed to have created 1,200 jobs, but just before signing the agreement it decided to pull out and assign the production capacity to its existing facilities in Romania.
