OAS Construtora to pay $8.8M to Aranjuez firm

The company’s owner Surujdeo Parai filed a lawsuit against OAS seeking to recover outstanding fees for services it rendered in the construction of the La Brea segment of the over $7 billion project, which is still incomplete. In a ruling, Justice Devindra Rampersad ordered OAS to pay Unishore a total of $8.860 million, including costs.

The company filed the lawsuit after it had not been paid since completing its services.

Under the contract between the two parties, OAS had agreed to make payments within 30 days of the company completing works which included delivery of aggregate, and conducting road markings.

OAS had offered to pay Unishore in heavy machinery as payment but the company refused and several attempts were made to negotiate with the firm. The contract with OAS was entered into in 2013.

This is just one of several million dollar lawsuits against OAS.

OAS is no stranger to controversy as in late 2014, several executives the construction giant were indicted by Brazilian law enforcement agencies for of making bribe payments to politicians and committing administrative irregularities in several Latin American countries.

The highway project is a reportedly only a little over 50 percent complete and has been marred with controversy since it commenced in 2011.

Construction had to be delayed on several occasions due to protest action at various sites taken by the Highway Reroute Movement (HRM), who opposed it based on environmental concerns and issues with the displacement of residents, whose land had to acquired by the Government for construction.

HRM has initiated a constitutional motion challenging Government’s decision to construct the highway, which is currently before High Court Judge James Aboud and is yet to go on trial. Unishore was represented by attorneys Kelvin Ramkissoon and Leon Kalicharan while Devesh Maharaj and Associates appeared for OAS.