New developments in the dispute
Boluda Terminal Marítima de Tenerife and Terminal de Contenedores de Tenerife, owned by Aleatica and the Global Infraco Spain fund, are at the center of a judicial and commercial battle now reaching the top of Spain’s court system.
The Chamber for Contentious-Administrative Matters of the Supreme Court has issued an Order Admitting, agreeing to examine the appeal filed by Boluda Terminal Marítima de Tenerife against a decision handed down in November 2025 by the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC).
Core of the dispute
The litigation hinges on a decision adopted on 14 December 2023 by the board of directors of the Santa Cruz de Tenerife Port Authority. In that agreement, the port body approved reviewing the concession title of Terminal de Contenedores de Tenerife, S.A.U. (TCT) by removing clause 5.4.2 from its operating specifications. The change directly removed the termination clause that threatened the TCT concession if it failed to meet minimum container traffic set by Spain’s state port regulations.
When Boluda tried to appeal through the administrative channel and later brought the case before the courts, the Port Authority dismissed the appeal for lack of standing due to failure to have active standing. The TSJC upheld that dismissal in its 2025 ruling, considering that the interest alleged by Boluda was a ‘merely hypothetical interest’ rather than a direct, legitimate right. The regional court argued that the potential termination of TCT’s title due to a drop in traffic depended on too many variables not guaranteed—such as the severity of the container deficit or the absence of justified grounds attributable to the infrastructure of the quay itself.
Legitimate expectations and prior conduct
The TSJC also based its refusal on the principle of legitimate expectations and prior conduct. The court recalled that in a prior cross-litigation case (appeal 127/1994, upheld in 2025), TCT had already been denied the ability to join proceedings to challenge Boluda’s concession-related developments. With both companies in a symmetrical position, the Canarian court concluded that Boluda could not now be granted the standing it had previously been denied to its direct competitor.
Supreme Court to set legal doctrine
The First Section of the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court, chaired by Judge Ángeles Huet De Sande as rapporteur, considers it necessary to establish jurisprudential doctrine due to the particular nature of the port market, where only a very small number of competitors operate under exclusive competition arrangements. The question of cassational interest set by the High Court focuses on: ‘Determining whether another concessionaire that operates in the same port holds a legitimate interest and therefore has active standing to appeal the modification of the operating specifications of a port concession.’
To that end, the court will interpret Article 19.1 of the Regulating Law of Contentious-Administrative Jurisdiction (LJCA) in relation to Article 24 of the Spanish Constitution (effective judicial protection). This new case is added to RC 101/2026 (admitted in May 2026), in which the Supreme Court examines the inverse scenario: the standing of TCT to challenge the concession extensions granted to Boluda.
By analyzing both cases jointly in the Fifth Section, the Supreme Court aims to clarify legal certainty on whether shipping companies and operators can seek judicial review of the advantages or regulatory flexibilities granted by Port Authorities to their direct rivals within the same demanial space.
The article ‘El Supremo revisará la guerra de terminales en Tenerife entre Boluda y Global Infraco (TCT) por la legitimación entre competidores’ was first published on canarymaritime.com.
