The TAR “rejects” JP Morgan’s Sardinian plans

Earnings of 6,000%

Those ten thousand euros of share capital become a high-priced slot machine : the selling partners cash in a single shot for the beauty of 628,800 euros, or a gain of 6,000% compared to the value of the company. The Americans know what they are buying, but they impose a protection clause, albeit marginal: " if, following the aforementioned verification of subjection, a complete EIA procedure is necessary, the residual sum of 40,000 euros will be paid upon the positive outcome of the EIA ." In the end, they were right not to pay the full price immediately, even if the price already paid had reached unexpected heights for the agricultural valuation of that area. That operation on agricultural land, in fact, crashed yesterday at the TAR Sardinia with the publication of a sentence destined not only to make noise, but, above all, to disturb the millionaires' sleep of those who thought they could do and undo on Sardinian soil in the name of Draghi & company.

Punch to JP Morgan

Without knowing it, the Judges of the Regional Administrative Court have dealt a punch in the face to the most powerful financiers in the world, the Americans of JP Morgan. The project, called “Macchiareddu”, almost as if to tie the industrial area with yet another photovoltaic invasion in agricultural lands, such in history and current events, had been heavily decimated by the Ministry of Culture at the beginning of 2024. Two thirds of those panels proposed by the “Yankees” had been deemed illegal, capable of negatively impacting waterways, archaeological heritage and existing agroforestry structure. The Americans couldn’t accept it. Not only did they risk losing the share paid for the “risky” purchase of that company, but they ran the serious risk of losing yet another millionaire “coup” of incentives linked to photovoltaics in Sardinian land. With a multiple and repeated appeal, dated 2024, the financiers of the " States" have entrusted their fate to the award-winning legal team of "Sticchi Damiani", the lawyers with a passion for renewables.

Double-edged sword

The attack and defense thesis of Sonnedix-JP Morgan, in law PV Ichnosolar srl, turned out to be a double-edged sword, ultimately lethal. In short, the "Americans" first argued that the area subject to the "solar" intervention fell within the category of the infamous Draghi Decree relating to the "sites subject to remediation identified pursuant to Title V, Part Four, of Legislative Decree 3 April 2006, no. 152". In practice, by referring to this typology, expressly indicated by the "executioner" Decree of Sardinia, the lawyers aimed to sweep away any obstacle that could be placed in the way of the time-saving approval of the "American" project. A thesis that ultimately turned out to be a real "shoot in the foot". According to the star-spangled lawyers, " the mere location of the plant in an area included in a SIN (National Interest Sites), together with the circumstance that the characterization procedure would have been started in relation to the area in question, would be sufficient to consider the area located in a suitable area " pursuant to the Draghi Decree. A lethal trap: with the excuse of the area included in the "SIN" for the reclamation of Sulcis, they thought they could get away with waterways and nuraghi, to the point of considering them completely irrelevant for the purposes of approval by the Ministries of the photovoltaic project of over 40 megawatts on the lands of Uta and surrounding areas. They were unlucky. Very unlucky. Superintendencies and the Ministry of Culture not only dismantled this thesis, but literally overturned it by demonstrating that those areas had not only never been reclaimed, but not even subjected to characterization and as such could not be excluded from the obligations to respect distances from rivers and archaeological assets. Added to this was that those areas were included within the perimeter of the Macchiareddu Industrial Consortium, but had clearly always been used for agricultural and forestry purposes. The one to write the "fall" of the American project is the number one of the TAR Sardinia, President Marco Buricelli, with Gabriele Serra, First Referendary, and Roberto Montixi, Referendary Writer. A pioneering and milestone ruling, capable of laying bare one of the crucial points of the Draghi Decree. A judicial provision that “rejects” without appeal the claim to “prevail” on archaeological, landscape and agricultural assets through the “industrial” definition of an area, considered by the provision of the “banker of Europe” to be a “suitable area” in all respects, as such above any other asset or value.

Iron fist

The Judges wear velvet gloves to hide their iron fist: «The Panel does not, however, consider this thesis to be shared». The magistrates are clear: in order to fully include those areas in a site “subject to remediation”, a whole series of steps had to have occurred. A procedure that the judges have recalled punctually: it was necessary to start from the historical reconstruction of the productive activities carried out in that context up to the « Identification of the acceptable residual concentration levels - on which to base any safety and/or remediation interventions, which may subsequently become necessary following the risk analysis - calculated through the risk analysis performed ». The magistrates are blunt : since the characterization of the site has not been completed, and consequently not even the possible remediation, the assumption invoked by the Americans for not respecting the archaeological assets, the hydrogeological constraints and the agricultural and forestry values of the area has lapsed. They write it bluntly: « This circumstance leads the Panel to believe that the mere initiation, as in the case in question, of an environmental characterization procedure of the site is not sufficient to consider the area included among the “sites subject to remediation” pursuant to letter b) of art. 20, a provision which, in defining such an area as suitable “ex lege” without further specifications, evidently presupposes that the compromise of the area (including the one called “SIN”) from an environmental point of view has already been ascertained ».

The exact opposite

In short, for the lawyers of the States the area is «expressly qualified as an area suitable for the installation of renewable energy plants», for the Judges the exact opposite. The “stars and stripes” defense deploys all the “secret” weapons of the Draghi Decree, almost as if they had written it. One of the cornerstones of the defense of the project is redundant: « the opinion of the Ministry of Culture must be qualified as non-binding and recessive with respect to the positive opinion expressed by the VIA Commission ». They know perfectly well that that “ non-binding opinion ”, prescribed by the “ Draghiman & woman” , has always been considered by all the lords of the wind and the sun as manna from heaven, a sort of “shredder” for judgments on archaeology and landscape. They know the Decree that “kills” archaeological and landscape assets by heart, so much so that in the appeal just thrown away by the TAR they do not stop repeating: the realization of the project « was supported by a significant public interest; the Ministry of Culture, on the contrary, in no passage of the contested act would have operated the necessary balance between the consequences of the negative provision and the safeguarding of the public interest in the promotion of "green" energy and regional and state energy autonomy ". From the most powerful investment bank in the world to mocking "benefactors" of Sardinia and the public interest is a moment.

Very private affairs

It's a shame that the only interest in the field is the "very private" one of the Wall Street players, looking for stratospheric profits to conquer on the head of Sardinia. The lords of the solar dollar don't even like the reality of the places: they even contest the evidence of the agroforestry function of the entire area. They are shameless even when it comes to an archaeological asset and they write it without hesitation: " the existence of an archaeological asset at a distance from the plant less than 500 meters, unlike what was detected by the Ministry of Culture, would not determine "tout court" the impossibility of considering the plant located in a suitable area ". The underlying philosophy of the USA is explicit: we don't care about nuraghi, landscape, waterways and agroforestry environment. The TAR does not agree: appeal rejected. The Judges are explicit: " the Ministry's contrary opinion for that part of the project represents the need to protect as many public interests related to the protection of cultural heritage and landscape ". The new American sack at Monte Arcosu does not pass.