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Mexico City court accepts multi-billion dollar lawsuit filed against five Maya Train construction companies

Riviera Maya, Q.R. — After a Merida court upheld a work suspension on section 5 of the Maya Train last week, a court in Mexico City has accepted a new lawsuit.

On Wednesday, Judge Luis Alberto Ibarra Navarrete from the Eighth District in Civil Matters based in Mexico City, accepted a lawsuit filed against five construction agencies of the Maya Train.

The suit is for between $26 and $28 billion dollars in estimated damages, reported the National Organization for State Responsibility (ONRE), which represents the plaintiff organizations.

In a press conference, the Organización Nacional de Responsabilidad del Estado (ONRE) reported that the recently filed class action lawsuit was accepted by the Mexico City court.

Representatives of ONRE reported that the lawsuit was filed May 13 against Grupo México, México Proyectos y Desarrollos, ICA Constructora, ICA Constructora de Infraestructura and Acciona Infraestructuras México, the five companies responsible for construction of the Maya Train.

The suit was filed and damages requested since the construction companies do not have the necessary environmental impact permits for the project.

“If the judge sees that they do not have permits, he would have to immediately stop all the work on the Maya Train that has been done because that is what the law demands,” said ONRE’s president, Jesús Alberto Guerrero Rojas.

Rojas explained that the lawsuit against the construction companies, particularly for section 5 of the Mayan Train, is of a reparatory nature for which the law would oblige them to replace the damaged ecological infrastructure including fallen trees and contaminated water.

He detailed that along the Cancun to Tulum section 5, there is “total devastation of the medium and high sub-evergreen, sub-deciduous forest. This is a lawsuit by the organization against five legal entities. It is a judgment of repair, of replacement,” he said adding that “they are the main ones responsible for the ecocide.”

“One of the issues is that they were given permission not to have to have a permit. The other thing is that they are violating the law knowing that they need an environmental impact study,” Guerrero added during the Tuesday press conference.

Last week, a Merida court upheld the temporary suspension of section 5 of the Maya Train after Fonatur challenged it.  the federal court confirmed the provisional suspension of construction along that section of Maya Train due to a lack of Environmental Impact Statement.