Shale gas pipe and valves in Pennsylvania, similar to those shown in the photo above, were at the heart of a costly contract dispute. ENR Art Dept. Faced with mounting interest after losing a $24-million jury verdict in Delaware County, Pa., a pipeline company late last week reached a settlement with contractor Utility Line Services, says the attorney for the contractor.The jury in April had ordered the defendant, PVR Marcellus Gas Gathering Inc., which was recently acquired by Dallas-based Regency Energy Partners, to pay Utility Line Services about $16.5 million for the amount it was owed. Another $7.8 million was
Related Links: Judge Orders IBCS and Scarborough to Return Contractors Premium A Bold Individual Surety Claims His Coal-Backed Bonds are Rock Solid Steven Golia, a key employee of Edmund C. Scarborough’s controversial IBCS Fidelity individual surety bond business, says he has been terminated by IBCS and has filed a lawsuit seeking money he claims he is owed. The information is contained in Golia’s April lawsuit in federal district court in Philadelphia. In it, Golia provides details of his compensation and dealings with Scarborough and Charlottesville-based IBCS Fidelity. According to Golia’s complaint, during his employment from 2008 to 2012 and in the months
Photo by Janice Tuchman/ENR Conference panel experts suggest the project's technical issues may not be unique. Related Links: High-Stakes Brinksmanship at the Panama Canal Panama Canal Owners and Contractors Reach Agreement With so many different nationalities and cultures represented among its participants, the Panama Canal expansion project faces obstacles worthy of the U.N. General Assembly. Together with the canal's vital role in world shipping and to the Panamanian economy—and with the project's construction risks—it's not hard to understand how misunderstandings could have led to $1.6-billion in disputed claims, said project risk experts speaking at ENR's Global Construction Summit in New
Related Links: 2014 Global Best Projects Winners When It Comes to Safety Leadership, Watch Your Language Construction safety lapses have killed many construction workers in Vietnam during its recent economic expansion, with 5,952 accidents in 2007 alone. That year, the Can Tho Bridge, 170 kilometers south of Ho Chi Minh City in South Vietnam, collapsed during construction, killing 53 people.Those statistics loomed large in the minds of the design and contracting team for the Dragon Bridge in Da Nang, one of this year's Best Project winners.The designer and contractor took pains to produce design and erection methods that would enhance
Related Links: Link to the Perez art museum webcam. Arup and the contracting team on the Jorge M. Perez Art Museum in Miami have exchanged nasty lawsuits over a disputed bolted building canopy connection, the failure of which both sides say caused heavy erected concrete canopy beams to fall in November, 2012. The accident could have badly injured or killed workers but no one was hurt. Expensive repairs were needed.The lawsuit involves Arup USA, the New York City-based unit of the big London-based engineer.At stake are damages sought by the contractors from Arup and money Arup says it is owed
Related Links: A Bold Individual Surety Claims His Bonds Are Rock Solid Big Insurance Broker Backpedals on Offer of Individual Surety The National Association of Surety Bond Producers, a trade association of surety brokers, is claiming a major victory in its campaign against surety fraud after Maryland lawmakers failed to renew a 2006 state law that partly opened the door to the use of individual surety on state projects. The lawmakers' inaction followed a state agency review that found the law produced no benefit in helping small contractors win work.The statute had been set to sunset once before, but state
Courtesy of http://craunf.org/ The refinery where DeBaldo worked as it appears on a website for retirees from Chevron, which once operated it. How long does a worker have to file a lawsuit after symptoms of asbestos-related disease appear?Despite 40 years of litigation and the existence of “discovery rules” that determine how statutes of limitation apply to asbestos-related illness, the issue remains controversial.Case in point: A state appeals court in Delaware’s New Castle County last month made a ruling involving an employee of a company that was acquired by URS Corp. The ruling involves the worker’s contention that he didn’t receive
Dept. of Veterans Affairs A Dept. of Veterans Affairs website shows William D. Montague prior to his indictment in 2013. After a former Dept. of Veteran's Affairs official in Ohio pleaded guilty last month to taking bribes over many years from an unnamed "integrated design firm" with several U.S. offices, the mystery remains about the identity of the firm.According to emails in the indictment, which was filed last year by federal prosecutors, the unnamed design firm was hoping to vault into the big time by using the official to help it fatten profits and win big VA contracts in western
Past experience posted by Steven Golia summarizes his accomplishments at Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. and IBCS Group. Steven Golia, a leading promoter of controversial individual surety bonds, no longer works for national insurance-surety broker Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., the company confirms. Golia had become an employee in January after Gallagher acquired McIntyre Risk Management, a Cherry Hill, N.J. broker for whom he had apparently worked since late last year.Now based in Haddonfield, N.J., Golia had announced in an email newsletter after the acquisition that the new parent would be managing general agent for individual surety bonds from surety
About two out of three of the 14 leading providers of liability insurance to design professionals say they paid a claim of $1 million or more in 2013, and about one out of five report that their largest claim was between $10 million and $19 million.That was one of many facts and trends reported in the annual survey of most large professional liability insurers by Ames & Gough, the Washington, D.C.-based broker. The survey shows that 2013 was a second consecutive year of modest premium price gains by the insurers.According to the survey, rate increases on renewal of 2% to
