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Publish Date : 28-Oct-2009

Halifax Regional Municipality will not have to fork out close to $150,000 to satisfy a lawsuit a local construction company launched against it. The Nova Scotia Appeal Court said in a decision Monday the municipality did nothing wrong in its tendering process on a Dartmouth project four years ago.

The Appeal Court also ruled that Amber Contracting Ltd. of Dartmouth, which had filed the original suit against the city, will have to pay municipality’s trial costs of $24,500 and appeal costs of $5,000. Amber filed the lawsuit after its bid and all other bids were rejected on a tender for the construction and upgrade of a Plymouth Road sanitary pumping station in Dartmouth. All the bids exceeded the municipality’s construction estimate. Amber had the lowest bid. The city cancelled the tender and months later retendered the same contract. The contract was awarded to a company that had not bid on the original tender.

Amber took the city to court, alleging that the municipality was price shopping to get a lower price and did not follow its normal practice of awarding a contract to the lowest bidder. Amber won the original suit after a three-day civil trial before Justice Heather Robertson. Justice Roberston ordered the city to pay Amber $147,560. HRM’s decision to retender and not to follow its usual practice were expressly permitted by the contractual terms of the tender. Two Appeal Court justices sided with the municipality, but Justice Jill Hamilton did not support the court’s decision and said she would have dismissed the appeal.

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