Cuatrecasas advises Volkswagen Group and SEAT S.A. on strategic project

Cuatrecasas advised the Volkswagen Group and Seat S.A. on negotiating the consortium agreement for the strategic project for the recovery and economic transformation of the electric and connected vehicle (“PERTE VEC”). 

PERTE are instruments that channel Next Generation European Funds. The objective of the PERTE VEC is to create the necessary ecosystem in Spain in the automotive field to develop and manufacture electric and grid-connected vehicles.

This strategic project requires proposals to be presented by consortiums in joint cooperation that structure initiatives to cover the different stages of the value chain. The consortium led by the Volkswagen Group and SEAT S.A., “Future: Fast Forward” (F3), will be the largest in the history of the automotive industry. With F3, it is hoped to make Spain an electric vehicle hub in Europe. 

Under the agreement, the group of companies making up F3 is prepared to invest €10 billion, with the Volkswagen Group and Seat S.A. investing €7 billion. In this context, this is the first consortium agreement on which Cuatrecasas has advised involving a negotiation and signing that posed many legal challenges. 

Of these challenges, we highlight (i) the liability regime between the 62 members of the association to cover the joint and several liability established by law, (ii) the complex institutional system regulated with an assembly and many committees to monitor project implementation in time and form, and (iii) the need for the consortium to self-regulate and make provision for exceptional mechanisms to assign contractual status or for termination.

Participating in the transaction was a large multidisciplinary team of over 30 Cuatrecasas lawyers, led by Javier Fontcuberta, Víctor Manuel Sánchez and Miguel Weil.