Time has run out for buildings corruption case, says Leuven court

A massive case against 55 staff of the federal buildings agency has been dropped because it exceeded its legal time limit, a court in Leuven has ruled.

The case dates back to 2007 and alleges that property developers and building contractors paid bribes to officials of the agency – which maintains and manages the federal government’s real estate portfolio – in return for contracts. The contractors would then make the money back by inflating their prices for government work.

One of the buildings concerned is the youth detention centre in Kortenberg, Flemish Brabant (pictured), which was contracted without going through the proper tendering procedures, and which ended up costing €10 million instead of the original budgeted price of €3 million.

The investigation led to a number of searches in 2008, during which two officials of the Leuven branch of the agency and five contractors admitted taking part in the bribery scheme.

Two months ago, a trial in Brussels related to corruption in the same agency led to sentences of between three months and two years for officials and three months to one year for contractors. That case involved 12 officials and 60 contractors.

Last January, meanwhile, five officials of the East Flanders branch and four contractors were acquitted, when the court decided that the charges were too vague and the period of the alleged offences too broad.

The 55 people involved in this latest case will walk, unless an appeal by the prosecutor’s office is successful. The court’s ruling this week also puts an end to any hope the buildings agency had of obtaining damages.