| Services Provided |
• Dispute Resolution |
The Dearborn Industrial Generation Project was designed as specified by the Turnkey Agreement between Duke/Fluor Daniel (D/FD), the Contractor, and DIG, the Owner, to provide all the electrical power (730 MW) and process steam (1.7 M lbs/hr.) to the Ford/Rouge Complex generated from blast furnace gas boilers.
An explosion at the existing power plant initiated a revised strategy to not only supply steam and electricity, but also build/upgrade electrical substations. Per Amendment One to the Turnkey Agreement, the Phase II portion was to be completed by July 31, 2001.
The project was approximately one year late and while claiming liquidated damages against D/FD, DIG deemed it necessary to take over the work in order to reduce further lost income and damages. D/FD claimed a breach of contract and asked for payment of services rendered as well as services lost by the take-over and unresolved change orders.
ACM was later retained as an expert witness involving the scheduling and delays encountered during construction of the DIG Plant. ACM’s involvement was to review hundreds of D/FD schedules and thousands of D/FD documents to develop an opinion regarding the integrity of the planning/scheduling, the execution of the project, and a quantification of delay on the project.
ACM further provided expert analyses and responses to the expert reports presented on behalf of D/FD. The analyses consisted of detailed reviews of the reports, the methodologies used by D/FD’s experts, and the detailed supporting documents.
ACM experts participated in two separate depositions, one in defense of ACM’s expert report and a second in defense of ACM’s rebuttal to D/FD’s expert reports. Additionally, ACM offered direct testimony and was cross examined regarding its expert report as well as rebuttal testimony and cross examination in response to the findings of D/FD’s experts.
ACM’s final opinion was that D/FD’s claims for delay, acceleration, and disruptions were without merit and DIG was entitled to approximately $24,000,000 of liquidated damages. The final ruling by the American Arbitration Association panel agreed with ACM’s opinion and awarded DIG approximately $10,000,000 in delay related liquidated damages.
