Brexit prices the EU dearly: 450 million in hire | EUROtoday

Listen to the audio model of the article

LONDON Brexit prices the European Medicines Agency dearly: the invoice might attain 370 million kilos, equal to 450 million euros, to pay the hire of an workplace that has been empty for years. After Great Britain’s exit from the European Union, following the referendum in June 2016, London misplaced the fitting to host the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The company was pressured to maneuver to an EU nation and had chosen Amsterdam as its new headquarters. The EMA subsequently anticipated to separate the onerous rental contract it had signed for 25 years for its headquarters in Canary Wharf, London’s new monetary district. However, the company had not taken into consideration the rigor of the English guidelines on leasing.

Already in 2019, the EMA had tried to cancel the rental contract, arguing that Brexit was a unprecedented and utterly sudden occasion which subsequently justified an early termination of the contract.

The English High Court then rejected the European company’s request: the decide had established that there have been no enough causes to not honor the rest of the “lease” and had subsequently imposed on the EMA the duty to proceed to pay the hire owed to the Canary Wharf Group, the proprietor of the property.

At the time, authorized consultants mentioned that in a post-Brexit transition interval it was vital to offer certainty to the property market and customarily underline the validity of contracts of all types entered into earlier than the referendum.

To recuperate no less than a part of the prices, the EMA had subsequently sub-leased its former London headquarters to WeWork, the group that gives shared and versatile work areas for start-ups and professionals. The downside is that WeWork, after having recorded nice successes, was hit by the disaster and specifically by the pandemic, which triggered the demand for places of work to break down. The introduction of distant working was deadly for the group, which – in a liquidity disaster and wanting tenants – declared chapter in November final yr.