Horizon Gulf Electromechanical Services LLC as a subcontractor on a construction project that has become the source of an almost AED 240 million dispute

Summary

We acted for Horizon Gulf Electromechanical Services LLC as a subcontractor on a construction project that has become the source of an almost AED 240 million dispute. Our client is the claimant before the Dubai Courts, in relation to the construction of Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital.

Details

Horizon Gulf Electromechanical Services LLC was the subcontractor on the construction of Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital. the UAE’s first, and only, hospital dedicated to treating children and adolescents.

After the project was completed, our client and the main contractor were still liable to complete certain parts of their scope of work. However, the main contractor failed to pay the losses they caused. The dispute arose when the main contractor refused to pay our client's loss and damages, and demanded that it be remunerated for the prolongation costs before the Dubai Court of First Instance.

Our client filed a substantive case in front of Dubai Courts against the subcontractor claiming outstanding unpaid amounts, in addition to the losses caused by the main contractor due to non-payment relating to the subcontract agreement between both parties for this project.

On the 24th of November 2021, the Court of First Instance issued a substantive judgement against the main contractor wherein the court obligated parties to settle the amount of AED 35.2m.

While a victory for our client, both parties were not satisfied with the judgment’s outcome, and filed an appeal in the Court of Appeal.

How we added value

Our unrivalled experience in construction disputes enabled us to act in this dispute. The project is a vital one as the state of the art paediatric medical facility was created under the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai ans is one of the few specialist paediatric hospitals in the Gulf region and the first in the UAE.

We claimed the outstanding amount and the opponent refused to pay the amount due to the technical nature of this dispute. We prepared an external expert report in order to support our technical allegations and successfully submitted it to the Court. Due to the timeline given to the expert committee appointed by the Court of First Instance, they could not award us the entire claim amount at that stage. We obtained a partial amount of the claim and filed an appeal. We then requested from the Court of Appeal to refer the case back to the same committee of experts which was initially appointed by the Court of First Instance to resume from the previous point of halt. We successfully convinced the Court of Appeal for the case to be referred back to the same committee, and attended a number expert meetings and waited for the complimentary report.