NRW premier Wüst defends 2020 Leverkusen bridge contract termination as €550m lawsuit heads to October hearing

The contract cancellation

In April 2020, the North Rhine-Westphalia state road agency Straßen.NRW terminated its contract with Austrian construction group Porr for the new Leverkusen Rhine Bridge on the heavily travelled A1 motorway. The termination cited systematic defects and numerous flaws in steel components manufactured in China. External supervision of the Chinese production had been only partially possible, according to officials.

Wüst's testimony

Hendrik Wüst, then NRW transport minister and now state premier (CDU), appeared as a witness before the Landtag's "bridge disaster" inquiry committee. He stated the state agency had demanded replacement of the steel parts, arguing that remediation would not achieve a contractually compliant state. The same intense monitoring effort that had plagued the old bridge threatened the new structure.

The locally produced steel components exhibited systematic errors and a large number of defects.

Wüst said he had authorised the termination under federal mandate based on expert reports, aiming to complete the bridge quickly. SPD MP Gordan Dudas questioned whether the cancellation had been legally sound at the time.

The legal battle

Since September 2021, the Federal Republic of Germany has been suing Porr at the Cologne Regional Court. The Bund is claiming damages of over €350 million, according to court information. Porr has counterclaimed for more than €200 million for work performed and lost due to the termination. The case file spans over 20,000 pages, and the court has scheduled a conciliation and hearing date for 16 October 2026 to examine the merits of the claims.

Political alarm

FDP MP Christof Rasche pressed the state government on whether a strategy had been developed, warning that the total exposure could reach up to €1 billion once interest and compound interest are included. The SPD parliamentary group also considers this order of magnitude plausible. NRW transport minister Oliver Krischer (Greens) expects no financial consequences for the state, asserting:

That concerns the federal government.

The Autobahn GmbH des Bundes has been responsible for motorway projects since 2021, shifting liability away from the Land.

Construction status

The first of two parallel bridges is already in operation; the second bridge is currently under construction. Overall completion is now expected by mid-2028, earlier than the timeline Porr had originally offered, according to Wüst.