Guam International Airport Authority is moving forward with its duty free award to Lotte Duty Free Guam, despite DFS Group’s pending legal action.

 

The decision to stand by its earlier award of the airport concession to Lotte Duty Free follows a specially convened meeting of the GIAA Board and the A.B. Won Pat International Airport Authority today (Tuesday 11 June) which was arranged last week, with this matter always intended to be the sole subject on the agenda.

The decision was reported by the Pacific Center News this afternoon (European time), effectively indicating that the GIAA Board is backing its belief that the contract will now be allowed to run as normal, despite legal action by DFS to have several aspects of the lead up to the award investigated. DFS has also asked the court to cancel the existing concession process and hold it again, but this time barring Lotte Duty Free from taking part and also insisting that an independent monitoring agent become involved with any new process.

 

Meanwhile, the GIAA and Lotte Duty Free have both indicated that they are reserving their rights to take legal action themselves if they believe it to be appropriate, although there are no signs of any activity in that area at present.

Key to what happens next in this dispute will be whether DFS Guam will be required to vacate its airport duty free retail presence by the handover date of July 21.

In its earlier legal submission DFS had already indicated it was temporarily prepared to pay the difference in guaranteed rent to GIAA between Lotte’s higher bid and its own while any case might be ongoing, but it remains to be seen what the next stage of this will now be.

For all of the recent background leading up to this latest event, click here: http://www.trbusiness.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13232&Itemid=11