A $700 million Supreme Court stoush between coal mining giant MACH Energy and construction group CDJV over the building of a coal handling and preparation plant is expected to go to trial.
Eight-weeks has been set down for the matter starting on August 19 and involving 44 lay witnesses and experts.
The parties are feuding over a 2017 contract to design, construct, and commission a coal handling and processing plant and train load-out facility at Mount Pleasant in the Hunter Valley.
Disputes arose during construction of the plant, resulting in a settlement and variation agreement on April 20, 2018. Among other things, the agreement meant a change to the date for practical completion to December 20, 2018.
Delays ensued and MACH replaced CDJV with an alternative contractor to complete construction of the Plant, which was ultimately completed in November, 2019.
MACH says it would never have signed the agreement if it knew certain milestones would not be met, and that CDJV engaged in misleading conduct.
"The representations were false and misleading or deceptive because G&S Engineering was insolvent or near insolvent in April 2018 and CJDV had significantly understated the time and cost to complete the works under the contract," it is alleged.
In March 2019, CDJV was granted an injunction to prevent MACH Energy from calling on its surety bonds on the $149 million construction project.
CDJV is claiming $15 million from MACH for various entitlements under the contract, but that figure has been dwarfed by MACH's cross claim.,
MACH alleges that CDJV had failed to meet deadlines on the project and was therefore liable to pay liquidated damages.
It says it suffered losses ranging from $675 million to $698 million.
The dispute over quantum involves various scenarios based on maximum outputs achievable at different states of the plant's completion - practical completion, or functional completion some three months later.
MACH has filed an amended cross-claim, introducing an alternative case to its original in response to evidence served in late 2023 by CDJV.
In it MACH says that if the issues identified by CDJV's experts as affecting actual coal production at the plant would also have affected coal production in a series of counterfactual circumstances, it would still have suffered losses ranging from $263 million to $319 million.
An expert for CDJV says that MACH's amended case is bound to fail, but Justice James Stevenson said those matters were best determined at trial.
The Newcastle Herald reported in June 2018, that about 250 workers downed tools for three days after a colleague was injured in a rigging accident during construction of the coal-handling plant and rail-loading facility.
Then just days before Christmas 2018, more than 380 workers at the mine were sacked after MACH announced it was terminating the CDJV project.
