A Chi­nese multi­na­tion­al con­tract­ing firm has been or­dered to pay over $700,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a lo­cal sub-con­trac­tor for un­paid fees re­lat­ed to a con­struc­tion project in 2016. 

High Court Judge Ricky Rahim or­dered Chi­na Jiang­su In­ter­na­tion­al Cor­po­ra­tion T&T Lim­it­ed to pay Earth to Move Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed the com­pen­sa­tion as he par­tial­ly up­held the lat­ter’s case on Wednes­day.  

The law­suit re­lat­ed to a $1,957,858.70 con­tract be­tween the com­pa­nies for the in­stal­la­tion of plumb­ing and elec­tri­cal pipelines at the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT) cam­pus in Waller­field. 

Earth to Move claimed that Chi­na Jiang­su, through its MEP sub­sidiary, var­ied the work ini­tial­ly agreed to and it com­plied. 

It ad­mit­ted that Chi­na Jiang­su paid $1,495,000 in 2019 but claimed that it was still owed over $8 mil­lion, which was based on ad­di­tion­al costs for the vari­a­tions and con­trac­tu­al in­ter­est on the un­paid bal­ance. 

In de­fence of the case, Chi­na Jiang­su claimed that the law­suit should have been di­rect­ed at MEP as it is a sep­a­rate le­gal en­ti­ty and dealt with the pur­port­ed vari­a­tions. 

Jus­tice Rahim re­ject­ed Chi­na Jiang­su’s claim. 

“There is no ev­i­dence that it is a sep­a­rate cor­po­rate le­gal or oth­er en­ti­ty de­spite its state­ment that it (MEP) is a sep­a­rate en­ti­ty,” he said. 

“The court, there­fore, finds that if mon­ey was ow­ing to the Claimant by the MEP, the De­fen­dant is re­spon­si­ble for pay­ing same,” he added. 

Deal­ing with the vari­a­tions, Jus­tice Rahim not­ed that Earth to Move did not have any doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence to prove that the al­le­ga­tion vari­a­tions were ap­proved by the MEP. 

“The court, there­fore, finds that the writ­ten con­tract was not amend­ed as a mat­ter of law so as to pro­vide for the ad­di­tions and/or vari­a­tion and that on the ev­i­dence there is no re­li­able ev­i­dence of ap­proval of those works,” Jus­tice Rahim said. 

“This is the un­for­tu­nate po­si­tion that the Claimant finds it­self in and the court must on­ly de­cide this case on the ev­i­dence be­fore it,” he added. 

Jus­tice Rahim al­so or­dered Chi­na Jiang­su to pay Earth to Move’s le­gal costs for the law­suit.

Earth to Move was rep­re­sent­ed by Vanes­sa Soo­brat­tie, while John Je­re­mie, SC, Kei­th Scot­land, SC, and Tim­o­thy Af­fon­so rep­re­sent­ed Chi­na Jiang­su In­ter­na­tion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.