The city of Karlovy Vary had a bad day in court Tuesday, as it lost its case against the consortium of builders that constructed the city’s new KV Arena. At best, however, the city comes off looking somewhat naïve in the eyes of the court, whose verdict was that the city unjustified in saying the final price was two times to high. The stadium cost CZK 1.1bn, but the city claimed this was CZK 564m too much. The article outlining the case in the daily Karolvarský denik does not mention who, if anyone, was responsible for the city’s project management and cost control. Somewhat bizarrely, the city also lost its claim not to be the owner of the stadium as the court determined that it was. And while the court found in favor of the price set by the builders (Syner, Metrostav and Baustav), it said that the contract governing the construction had been invalid from the start. Former deputy mayor Tomáš Hybner, who was in office during the stadium’s construction, said the ruling was a blow to the city, but claimed there was a silver lining. “The former leadership of city hall cleared itself from the suspicion that it did anything that was provably wrong.”
