There is a typo in the script https://github.com/google/globalfoundries-pdk-libs-gf180mcu_fd_pr/blob/main/rules/klayout/lvs/run_lvs.py, in line 96. The check should be:
if args["--net"]: ... , not if args["--design"]
once the existence of GDS file was already performed, and it is now necessary to check for the existence of the netlist to compare against.