The Generalitat negotiates the purchase of the administrative district of the Free Trade Zone

BarcelonaThe Generalitat de Catalunya, through Fira 2000, is negotiating the purchase of the offices in the administrative district of the Zona Franca from the company AXA, where various departments have been located since 2020. Three meetings have already taken place, and very soon, in May, there will be a fourth meeting. These negotiations aim to put an end to 11 years of shadows surrounding this operation promoted in 2015 by the owner of the Zona Franca land, Fira 2000, a commercial company whose majority shareholder (53.6%) is the Generalitat and which also includes the participation of the city councils of Barcelona and L'Hospitalet and the Diputació de Barcelona.

A complaint from CCOO led to an investigation by the Office of Anti-Fraud of Catalonia (OAC), which in March 2023 identified seven alleged irregularities and inconsistencies in the awarding of the land by the government of Artur Mas and which, this March, through a final resolution, argued that the contract with Zumaran Inversiones, the AXA subsidiary that won the public tender in 2015, could be null and void. This position from the OAC gives the Generalitat more leverage in negotiations with AXA, which also won a second tender in 2015 to build the offices on the Zona Franca land currently occupied by the Catalan administration.

During recent years, the award to Zumaran has been a subject of legal debate. One of the main irregularities detected in the agreement with AXA is that it included a right to purchase the land – 46,000 mPre-tender contacts

Over the last few years, the award to Zumaran has been the subject of legal debate. One of the main irregularities detected in the agreement with AXA is that it included a right to purchase the land –46,000 m²– for 6 million that was not part of the initial tender announcement. In fact, an opinion from the Generalitat itself revealed that the company and Fira 2000 maintained contact – via emails, calls, and meetings – 10 months before the tender announcement that Zumaran won was published. "[In the prior contacts] Aspects as relevant as prices or the conditions of the operation were discussed, and in particular an eventual purchase option that was finally accepted as an improvement," states the report of the Generalitat's instructor, who, on two occasions, made a proposal for a resolution to declare the award to Zumaran null and void. Without success.

Regarding a question about the legal nature of Fira 2000, the Legal Advisory Commission of the Generalitat, in an opinion dated February 6, 2025, contradicted the resolutions of the instructor and Antifrau and argued that Fira 2000 is a "commercial company" and the operations were of a "purely private nature". With the conclusions of this opinion made by rapporteur Carles Mundó, the Department of Economy, controlled by the PSC, shelved the case and sent it back to Antifrau. In parallel, in July 2025, shortly before the purchase right of 6 million expired, AXA wanted to exercise this clause and sent a burofax to Fira 2000 to formalize it. Then, the Catalan administration transferred the intention to recover the buildings in the Zona Franca and, to gain time for negotiations, a 10-year extension of the purchase right was agreed.

The origin of the operation

Zumaran was the only company that submitted a bid for the tender, which was announced on March 30, 2015, and awarded on April 21. Winning this operation granted AXA's subsidiary the surface rights of the land in the Zona Franca for 99 years in exchange for a one-time fee of 15.5 million. A few weeks later, on June 10, the Generalitat convened a second tender to rent a property to house the departments. The announcement specified that the building had to be located in the Zona Franca and have between 35,000 and 50,000 m². Only AXA submitted a bid, signing a 20-year lease agreement at a rate of 13.45 million per year. In total, more than 260 million, one of the largest real estate operations by the administration, then struggling with the crisis. The double operation within a few months of each other led CCOO to denounce that there was a "prepared and coordinated action" for AXA to "be awarded the tender".

Following the irregularities detected by Antifrau, the Department of Economy, then led by Esquerra, initiated the investigation of the case. The conclusion was clear: the award to Zumaran was null and void. In March 2024, however, the Legal Advisory Commission overturned the first investigation, arguing that it was invalid because it had expired. Nevertheless, Economy initiated a second review, and the new investigator decided, in two rulings, to declare the award null and void again. "The civil route was prescribed, but it had to be investigated, and the only option was an ex officio review, because the operation was detrimental to public interests," argues a former senior official of the administration.

During the investigation, the board of directors of Fira 2000, at the proposal of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce –which no longer has a stake in Fira 2000–, incorporated an opinion from an external lawyer stating that the ex officio review was inappropriate. For its part, Zumaran quantified the financial damages of declaring the procedure null and void at 388 million. Nevertheless, the investigating judge remained firm and pointed out that there was no technical report justifying the amount of the fee or the future sale price, a fact "especially serious" in "administrative practice". Furthermore, he concluded that the prior contacts –admitted by senior officials of Fira 2000, the Generalitat, and an AXA executive– "were of such a nature and scope that they essentially distorted the subsequent competitive procedure". According to the investigating judge, the tender "was born void", as AXA had "a more advantageous position –not preferential treatment– than any other potential bidder", which broke "the principle of equality".

However, the Legal Advisory Commission again rejected the instruction, stating that the "contract award agreement and the ratification agreement" that were subject to ex officio review were not "administrative acts" and that "the entity that adopted them", Fira 2000, did not have "the status of a public administration". With this opinion, Economy once again transferred the documentation to Antifrau and the previous director of the auditing body, Miguel Ángel Gimeno, sent a letter to the minister Alícia Romero to emphasize that the resolution of the Generalitat's instructor confirmed "the irregularities" detected by Antifrau and that, in addition, others previously unknown were added, such as prior conversations. For Gimeno, it was clear "that it was a three-way operation" between AXA, Fira 2000 and the Generalitat, and warned that Antifrau could not "ignore the relevance of the aforementioned prior negotiations with the private operator". Finally, this has been the case, and the new director, Josep Tomàs Salàs, pushed forward the resolution that gives the Government tools to negotiate with AXA.

The associate professor of law at UPF and expert in public procurement Carmina Llumà clarifies that Fira 2000 could have carried out a direct sale of the land, but, since based on a report from an external firm what was supposed to be a direct award was converted into a public tender to obtain better offers, the prior contacts between the company and Zumaran "could no longer be erased". The professor considers that it was "a triangular operation" about which it would be "important" to know if the information transmitted to Zumaran during the months prior to the tender was passed on to the "rest of the companies" in the sector to guarantee "competition". The other companies would have had three weeks to prepare a project and submit it.