Press Release

22 February 2010


McGrigors wins successful Wembley Stadium appeal for Cleveland Bridge

  • Initial judgment of £4.2 million slashed to £1.8 million

McGrigors, the leading commercial law firm, has acted for Cleveland Bridge UK (‘CBUK’) Limited, the structural engineering company, in a successful appeal against an initial £4.2 million judgment awarded against the company in relation to work on the new Wembley stadium.

The initial judgment, which saw CBUK pay £4.2 million to Brookfield Construction (formerly Multiplex Construction (UK) Limited) (‘Multiplex’) was reduced by the Court of Appeal to £1.8 million. When interest is taken into account Multiplex must now return some £3 million (49%) of the original judgment to CBUK.

The Court of Appeal ruled that the calculation for the initial judgment had been incorrectly made on the basis of work actually completed. The Court of Appeal accepted McGrigors’ argument that the judgment should have taken into account the amount of time which had passed under the contract and therefore the earlier award was substantially reduced.

Multiplex, the main contractor for the new Wembley Stadium, had launched litigation against CBUK claiming errors in the design and fabrication of steelwork for the project.

The parties will present agreed figures on the impact of the Court of Appeal’s Judgment on 5 March 2009 and the costs implications of the Court of Appeal’s Judgment will be put forward by the parties by 19 March 2010.

Michael Fenn, Partner, and Yuri Botiuk, Director, led the McGrigors team for CBUK.

Clifford Chance acted for Multiplex.

Andy Peat

Business Development Director
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7054 2710
Mobile:  +44 (0)7894 835 386
Email: andy.peat@mcgrigors.com

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