Contractual Incompleteness and Judicial Gap-Filling in Long-Term Infrastructure Concessions: Empirical Evidence from European Public-Private Partnership Disputes, 2005–2022

Abstract

This study examines the determinants of judicial gap-filling behavior in long-term infrastructure concession agreements through a systematic empirical analysis of 347 public-private partnership (PPP) disputes adjudicated across six European jurisdictions between 2005 and 2022. Drawing on incomplete contracts theory and transaction cost economics, we construct a multivariate logit model to identify the contractual, institutional, and macroeconomic variables that predict activist judicial intervention in renegotiated concession terms. Our findings indicate that contract duration, asset specificity, and the absence of explicit renegotiation clauses are the most significant predictors of court-imposed modifications. We further document substantial cross-jurisdictional heterogeneity in gap-filling doctrines, attributable to divergent statutory frameworks governing administrative contracts. These results carry direct implications for optimal concession design, regulatory policy, and the allocation of holdup risk in infrastructure procurement.