Paris's La Defense district scraps Russian developer's twin towers project

A statement said the council determined that the project lacked "financial and technical guarantees". Opponents said it did not provide enough benefit for local residents.

Local authorities in the La Defense business district of Paris said on Monday they had definitively ended plans by Russian developer Emin Iskenderov to build a long contested complex with a pair of luxury twin towers.

The local governing council for La Defense unanimously voted against finalising a provisional offer it had made last year to sell the land for the towers to Iskenderov's Hermitage group. A statement said the council determined that the project lacked "financial and technical guarantees". Hermitage representatives could not immediately be reached for comment.

The project to build twin 320-metre-high towers, designed by British architect Norman Foster, had met a host of legal challenges since its launch in 2007. Opponents said it did not provide enough benefit for local residents.

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