A local company has declared its intent to sue the province over “rejected” girders on top of serving the manufacture, Freyssinet , with a lawsuit.
Charlie Hotham of Hotham Building Materials says his company sold Freyssinet $116,000 worth of products they've never been paid for.
“Hotham supplied the materials, Freyssinet took them,” says Hotham’s lawyer Matt Todd. “They are under a legal obligation to pay for those materials, that’s regardless of whether they've been paid by anyone else.”
Todd has also put the province on notice. They intend to sue the government as well; a move supported by local contractors and politicians.
“Where was the responsibility to make sure the first girder was good, not the 300th,” says Hotham. “Where was the inspection on the first girder?”
In a written statement, Windsor-West MPP Teresa Piruzza says:
I welcome the opportunity to support him through his challenges; however the province is not an official party in the business arrangement where Hotham Building Materials Inc. supplied materials to Freyssinet group for the HGParkway Project.”
Brad Coxon, of Coxon Sales & Rentals, is also frustrated with Freyssinet. Coxon says the company rented a trailer from his company and was being paid with no issue. That is until the government announced it was reviewing the girder construction. Coxon says Freyssinet stopped payment immediately.
“For them to turn their backs and not contact us, and the salt in the wound is they left us with no notice, we had to go and retrieve our equipment at our cost,” says Coxon. “At this point we're shy of 10,000 bucks.”
CTV News has reached out to Freyssinet in Toronto and was told CEO Frank Chavent is away and won't be back in the office until next week. No one else would comment.
It’s important to mention that Freyssinet has already launched a lawsuit against the Windsor-Essex Mobility Group.
Officials with the Herb Gray Parkway tell CTV News they do not have a formal relationship with Hotham Building Materials and say the issue of outstanding payments is a matter for Freyssinet and Hotham to settle on their own.
