A Mexican judge has ordered the Puebla state government to compensate Spanish infrastructure developer OHL for canceling its concession to build and operate Puebla's Libramiento Norte highway, officials said Friday.

The court rejected OHL's appeal against the May 2012 decision canceling the 33-year concession, which was granted in 2008, the state government said in a statement.

The court ruled that the state acted legally in withdrawing the concession under the legal concept of "recovering a public good," but it established that OHL must be compensated. However, the amount of that compensation remains to be determined.

Puebla's Government canceled the concession on May 9, 2012, after discovering it was granted in 2008 without a competitive bid process. The government had argued that "there were a dozen serious irregularities" in the awarding of the contract. The previous state administration, which signed the concession with OHL, was headed by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.

OHL has argued the fact that there was no guarantee of a hearing provided before the decree whereby the state government withdrew the firm's concession to build and operate a stretch of highway 35 kilometers (22 miles) long.

OHL also said that it obtained the concession in 2008 in accordance with "the strictest legality."

OHL Mexico has already invested 650 million pesos ($46 million) in the project.

This $226 million 4-lane toll road, two in each direction, will connect the Mexico-Puebla freeway with the Amozoc-Perote and Puebla-Veracruz highways, allowing to clear the urban zone and significant time savings for users of the long distance corridor linking Mexico City and Veracruz, the main port on the Atlantic coast of Mexico.