EXPERT TESTIMONY IN A TOLL ROAD ARBITRATION

Challenge

An international arbitration arose between a toll road concessionaire and a municipal government concerning the interpretation of the concession contract’s tariff adjustment mechanism and the investor’s resulting damages claim. The dispute centered on whether the toll adjustment provisions had been applied correctly and whether the investor had in fact suffered the revenue losses it alleged. DHInfrastructure was retained to provide independent economic and financial analysis and expert support in the proceedings.

Our Role

DHInfrastructure reviewed the concession contract, supporting regulatory framework, and the claimant’s damages model to assess the economic implications of the competing interpretations advanced by the parties. We developed an independent financial model using actual traffic and macroeconomic data to evaluate the revenue impacts associated with different applications of the adjustment mechanism. Our analysis demonstrated that the claimant’s interpretation would produce economically inconsistent outcomes and that the alleged revenue shortfall was not supported by the underlying data.

Impact

The arbitration tribunal ultimately ruled in favor of the municipal government, finding that the claimed revenue losses were unsupported and that the concessionaire had in fact over-collected revenues under the concession. The case demonstrated DHInfrastructure’s ability to provide rigorous economic analysis and expert support in complex infrastructure disputes involving concession economics, tariff regulation, and long-term financial modeling.