El Plazo de la Liquidación del Contrato Estatal: Tensión Entre Competencia y Autonomía de la Voluntad

Abstract

The settlement of the state contract involves making a balance, to verify compliance with the obligations that the parties were responsible during the execution of the contract. The term for the liquidation sets a time limit for the parties to define the balance of the state contract by mutual agreement, establishes the competence of the contracting entity to unilaterally decide to cut off the accounts of the execution of the contract and determines the possibility of the intervention of the judge to settle the disputes arising from the liquidation. The purpose of this paper is to offer the reader a legally admissible interpretation to unveil the function of the term in the liquidation of the state contract, which in turn, allows to solve the conflicts that have arisen regarding: i) the capacity of the parties to liquidate the contract outside the terms initially provided, ii) the power of the state entity to liquidate it unilaterally, iii) the possibility of judicial control of the liquidations produced outside these terms and, iv) the possibility of requesting the contentious judge the liquidation of the contract.