A report in Canadian Manufacturing states that the federal government reached an out-of-court settlement over a failed naval ship tender which cost taxpayers up to $8 million
OTTAWA—The Harper government paid out as much as $8 million to settle legal claims arising from the collapse of the first failed bid to build new supply ships for the navy, The Canadian Press has learned. One of the companies that received payment has subsequently been hired to work with Vancouver-based Seaspan Shipyards to provide the design for the new program, which hopes to deliver vessels by 2018-19.
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[b]uried deep in National Defence documents obtained under the Access to Information Act, is a reference to a previously unknown litigation fund related to the first failed procurement. The issue of compensating defence contractors over failed procurements was front and centre last month when the Harper government announced it was cancelling a multi-billion dollar armoured vehicle program. A spokeswoman for the Department of Public Works confirmed that one of the bidders, ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems of Germany, filed a statement of claim, which was quietly settled through negotiation in late 2010.The story also reports that the government relied on the confidentiality terms in the secret deal as the reason for refusing to disclose the actual cost of the claim to taxpayers.
