ÖBB Annual Report 2023

249 Consolidated Financial Statements Österreichische Bundesbahnen-Holding Aktiengesellschaft Consolidated Financial Statements | Group Management Report 31 With regard to the carrying amounts of intangible assets and property, plant and equipment, reference is made to the schedule of assets in Notes 14 and 15. Explanatory information on the effects of impairment losses and reversals of impairment losses is also provided in the Notes 14 and 15. Information on the impairment calculation methodology, the structure of the cash-generating units and the calculation premises is provided in Note 3 in the section “Impairment of property, plant and equipment, intangible assets and investment property”. c. Estimated useful lives of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets The estimated useful lives are determined according to the circumstances of the company with usual maintenance costs. Actual use may differ from these estimates. A sensitivity analysis showed that a change in useful life (remaining useful life) of -/+ 1 year would increase amortisation by approx. EUR 199.1 million (py: approx. EUR 206.5 million) or decreased by approx. EUR 183.7 million (py: approx. EUR 159.5 million). The adequacy of the useful lives is subject to an annual or case- by-case review. The defined useful lives apply unchanged in 2023. In the 2023 financial year, the useful life of a small part of the “Other equipment, operating and office equipment” asset group was extended. This has decreased the annual depreciation in the amount of approx. EUR 1.0 million. This was an change of estimation that was applied prospectively. d. Provisions Provisions are measured according to the best estimate, i.e., the amount that the company would have to pay, under reasonable consideration, to settle or transfer the obligation to a third party as of the reporting date. There are several regulatory proceedings as at 31.12.2023. These proceedings, which are at different procedural levels, cover the period from December 2011 to 2023. In terms of content, the main issues are the determination and setting of the infrastructure usage charge (from December 2011 to December 2017), the charges under the new infrastructure charging model for the period December 2019 to December 2023 (“train path” product with regard to directly attributable costs and market mark-ups in conformity with the law up to and including the working timetable period 2021) and the admissibility of the level of station charges for the use of service facilities from December 2015 to 2021. Adjustments were made to the provisions for infrastructure charges and station charges based on findings from the course of the proceedings. Further proceedings concern the traction current grid usage charges for the period from 2016. Notices were issued by the regulatory authority SCK for the 2016 to 2018 fee years, which the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG) referred back to the first-instance authority SCK for a new decision due to errors in the investigation and reasoning. For the 2019 and 2020 charge years, notices were issued by the SCK in April 2021, against which appeals were filed with the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG). The proceedings were not yet decided in the 2023 financial year and are currently still pending before the Federal Administrative Court. In the 2023 financial year, the provisions in connection with the 2016 to 2023 traction current network charge were reassessed due to the procedural steps taken by the SCK. This was determined as follows: Based on the first-instance decisions from the previous proceedings (2016 to 2020) and the current procedural steps, the amount of the fee components expected to be refunded to customers (cost items in the calculation model) was determined and provisions were made for these. The outcome of the pending proceedings may lead to a change in the charges previously invoiced by ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG, resulting in a reimbursement obligation for ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG (a subsequent claim for charges is also conceivable, but legally in dispute). These risks were assessed individually for each case or proceeding with the involvement of experts and taken into account in the statement of financial position in the form of provisions. The necessity and amount of the provisions are largely dependent on management acceptance and assessment of the outcome of the proceedings. Uncertainties exist in particular due to the difficulty in assessing results of the interpretation of legal issues by the supervisory authority, administrative courts or courts of law that have not yet been fully judged, possible restrictions on the temporal effect of decisions, and with regard to the type, scope and amount of recognised costs and market mark-ups as a basis for charging tariffs for the use of rail infrastructure. Only if a decommissioning of individual lines is expected in the foreseeable future or has already been initiated are the decommissioning costs estimated and provisions created. The amount of the expected decommissioning costs depends largely on the assumptions of the decommissioning scenarios.