DSS said the A2 project was behind its bankruptcy Courtesy of wikimedia commons

 A court in Warsaw ruled last week that aggregates supplier and road builder Dolnośląskie Surowce Skalne (DSS), which was working on Section C of the A2 highway, is to be declared bankrupt. DSS, which said it would appeal the decision, was contractor for Section C in a consortium with Czech-German firm Bögl & Krżsl.

DSS filed for bankruptcy, but had hoped to reach agreement with its creditors before liquidation proceedings began. A number of DSS’s subcontractors which haven’t been paid for their work have also filed for bankruptcy. At the end of last year, DSS had zł.836 million in debts, Wyborcza.pl reported. Its main creditors are Kredyt Bank and bond holders.

Bögl & Krżsl has announced that it will take over all work on Section C and that it would complete construction by the deadline. This task became harder in the second half of last week, when a number of subcontractors working on the section drove excavators and trucks onto the A2, blocking construction work in protest at having not been paid by DSS.

“I am in a dramatic situation. I employ hundreds of men and their fate is now threatened,” Paweł Winnicki, owner of one of the subcontracted firms, told Gazeta.pl, adding that his company has not been able to make contact with DSS.

“If we do not receive money within the next two weeks, we will block the whole of Warsaw,” he added.

WBJ was unable to contact representatives at DSS. Also, the firm’s website has been taken down.

DSS has reportedly said that the main reason it filed for bankruptcy was that it had become too heavily engaged in road building, and especially in the construction of the A2. Some experts have said the public procurement process isn’t sufficiently rigorous in establishing whether a contracted company has the wherewithal to pay its subcontractors.

“This contract was simply too large for [DSS] – even in a consortium with Bögl & Krżsl,” said Bartłomiej Sosna, head construction analyst at PMR Publications.
“DSS is mainly a producer of aggregates and this was its first contract as a general contractor, unfortunately unsuccessful.”

Chinese company COVEC, which was the contractor for Section C before DSS and Bögl & Krżsl, had its contract terminated last year after it also failed to pay subcontractors on time.