RE: Legal News17 Apr 2020 17:35
Lsetown,
Yes it is.
A little history of the case..
In 2007 Medoil submits search request to hydrocarbons in the Basilicata region
In 2009 the Region provides the first document. Or rather: with a resolution, it considers that the environmental impact assessment was not necessary for the research project, as it was only a matter of acquiring and processing seismic data already available. Basically, there were no exploratory wells, drilling or boring.
The Region therefore adopted a non-EIA provision for three years. The time it would have taken to for the region to sign the VIA (the memorandum of understanding for the issue of the research permit.)
The three years pass and we arrive at 2012: the agreement is not yet ready, and the VIA exclusion measure is about to expire.
At that point, Medoil requests the extension of the VIA exclusion measure, since the delay did not depend on the company but on the Region.
But in December 2016 the region denies the agreement for the Masseria La Rocca research permit.
So Medoil resorts to the Tar.
Two years later, in May 2018, the Tar, accepted the appeal of Rockhopper, holder of the permit, and annulled the provision of the Regional Council, referring the decision on the agreement to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers (so-called substitute power with simplified procedure).
Then the Region appeals to the Council of State. It also loses this appeal. And then to the Constitutional Court, and this too last in 2018 gives reason to Rockhopper. Writing in the ruling that “The groundlessness of the action promoted by the Basilicata Region, based on purely instrumental and delaying purposes, would be confirmed, confirmed by the fact that it challenged the same judgment before the Joint Sections of the Court of Cassation, deducing the same jurisdiction grounds. "
So after 12 years of administrative delays, changes in political decisions, appeals on appeals, that finally the research could begin to check whether there is Masseria La Rocca of oil.
But the issue went to the Council of Ministers within the 5 Star Movement, now in government which in December 2018 denied the permit. Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said on the government had turned down a request for permits to explore the Masseria La Rocca hydrocarbon field in southern Italy - announced on Facebook!
Rockhopper appealed this other decision before the Lazio Tar and last month won again – with all parties paying Rockhopper’s costs.
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