A 小蓝视频 Supreme Court judge has rejected Metro Vancouver’s request to delay legal proceedings over the North Shore Wastewater Treatment plant.
Metro Vancouver's sewage district said it couldn’t be ready for trial, which is currently scheduled for March 1, 2027, so it had applied to push it back to no earlier than Sept. 1, 2028. A major impediment expressed by Metro’s legal team is the 3.9 million documents produced by the former contractor for the sewage plant, Acciona Wastewater Solutions.
But Justice Bruce Elwood denied the adjournment, because he said evidence produced by Metro didn’t justify the delay, according to his written ruling.
Elwood acknowledged the “complex” legal action regarding the design, construction and partial financing of the sewage plant.
Acciona is suing Metro for more than $250 million for breaches of contractual obligations, including wrongfully terminating the project agreement.
Metro is countersuing Acciona and six affiliates for more than $1 billion for breaching the agreement, including “material” breaches that gave it the right to end the agreement and seek damages.
After construction first began in August 2018, progress started to stall at the site as the relationship soured between Metro and Acciona.
In October 2021, Metro terminated the project agreement with Acciona, and as the new construction manager in 2022. The estimated cost of the project has ballooned from $700 million to almost $4 billion.
Metro said it was unable to provide a cost estimate of the legal proceedings at this time.
Risk to Acciona losing evidence if trial delayed, judge says
Elwood said Metro's request to adjourn the trial nearly two years before the scheduled date needed to be supported by evidence that the applicant objectively can’t be ready for trial by that time.
He added that there’s a “real risk” to Acciona losing evidence if the trial is delayed.
“Three years have already passed since the termination of the [project agreement], four to five-and-a-half years since the events leading to the termination, six years since the PA was negotiated, and ten years since the procurement period commenced.”
Acciona risks losing more senior-level employees as potential witnesses as time goes on, Elwood said. To date, one senior witness has died, three have retired and 13 have become unavailable due to health or other restrictions, the ruling states.
Elwood said he wasn’t persuaded that an adjournment is necessary.
“I appreciate that trial preparation is putting a strain on the current resources of the [Metro] legal team, but [Metro] has not shown anything improper or entirely unforeseeable about the scale or complexity of this litigation,” he said.
“Metro is a sophisticated litigant represented by one of the leading law firms in the country,” Elwood said. “The resources required to litigate this case on the current schedule are not disproportionate to the amount of money involved, the importance of the issues, or the complexity of the proceedings.”
Metro may need to devote more resources to the litigation, he added.
If there are material changes that increase the risk of an unfair trail, Metro can renew its request to delay the trial, Elwood said.
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