Note 49 Contingent assets and liabilities

Lease liabilities

Please refer to note [45] to the company financial statements for details of lease liabilities.

Contingent liabilities

Pursuant to Section 403 Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code, Alliander has assumed liability for the obligations arising from the legal acts of several of the subsidiaries listed in the other information. Alliander, together with its Dutch subsidiaries, forms a tax group for both corporate income tax and value added tax (VAT). Consequently, every legal entity forming part of the tax group bears joint and several liability for the tax liabilities of the legal entities included in the tax group. Alliander has also given a declaration of indemnity to network operator Liander under which its liability in this respect is restricted to the amount for which Liander itself would be liable if a tax group did not exist.

As at year-end 2019, Alliander had issued parent company guarantees amounting to €33 million (2018: €34 million), including a parent company guarantee of €5.1 million (2018: €5.2 million) for non-controlling interests. Bank guarantees amounting to €0.9 million had been issued on Alliander’s behalf as at year-end 2019 (2018: €0.6 million). As at year-end 2018, Alliander had issued guarantees totalling €27 million to the subsidiary Allego B.V. that was sold off in 2018. Under the terms of the sale and purchase agreement, Alliander is indemnified by the purchaser Meridiam in the event that these guarantees are invoked. In 2019, nearly all of these guarantees were taken over by Meridiam; as at year-end 2019, there was an amount of €0.1 million outstanding.

Investment and purchasing commitments

The following table presents the existing investment commitments and other purchase commitments as at year-end.