Court rules in EMBD’s favour

A civil engineering firm has failed to stop legal proceedings against it by the Estate Management Business Development Company (EMBD).

Lee Young and Partners (LYP) sought to have the court proceedings against it stayed after it was accused by the EMBD of wrongly certifying interim payment certificates submitted by contractor Namalco on one of six projects.

According to EMBD’s claim against LYP, the certified amounts to be paid to Namalco were in excess of what it should have been and this led to EMBD having to pay more to Namalco.

The lawsuit against LYP was a subsidiary claim filed by the EMBD in a lawsuit in which Namalco is seeking payment of $1.3 billion for money owed on the six projects.

The claim against LYP also sought to make the engineering firm a party to the action in the event EMBD was found to be liable to Namalco for the contract.

In June, Justice Ricky Rahim denied LYP’s application for the stay and yesterday the Court of Appeal upheld his decision.

In a written ruling, Justices of Appeal Allan Mendonca, Judith Jones and Peter Rajkumar held that Rahim was right to refuse to grant a stay to LYP.

Rajkumar said to grant the stay would have resulted in a multiplicity of proceedings between EMBD, LYP and Namalco as well as a risk to EMBD of substantial injustice.

He also said there was the risk of EMBD losing altogether if a stay of its ancillary claim were to have been granted despite the courts finding of an over certification by LYP.

LYP was represented by Deborah Peake, SC, and Ravi Heffes-Doon while British Queen’s Counsel Stephanie Barwise and attorney Colin Kangaloo represented the EMBD.

In its lawsuit, Namalco, which is based at the Labidco Industrial Estate in La Brea, is claiming unpaid fees for six construction contracts performed for the EMBD.

Namalco is contending that it was not paid despite completing the projects and having them approved by an independent engineering company, as stipulated in its contracts with EMBD.

In its defence, the EMBD is contending that the company’s invoices were inflated and that the fees have to be reduced to take into account deficiencies in the quality of the work.

Namalco is also claiming that through its actions, the EMBD breached its own policies on the handling of contracts.

The contracts were for six construction projects at Mahaica, Brickfield, Cedar Hill, Roopsingh Road, Petite Morne and Picton and Monkey Town.