LAWFUEL – Press Release Service – Linklaters has defeated a $220 million fraud and negligence claim against its client Petrobras.
The claim was part of the huge on-going litigation concerning the P36 rig – which was the world’s largest oil and gas production platform before it tragically exploded and sank 190km off Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 2001. The immense structure had been towed across the Atlantic from Italy to a shipyard in Quebec to be upgraded, and then on to the Roncador oil field off-shore Brazil.
In 2004, Linklaters obtained judgments in the P36 litigation which turned claims of around US$245 million against Petrobras into a US$105 million win.
Following that, the company which managed the upgrade claimed Petrobras had made false representations to it which resulted in losses of around $220 million. In a judgment delivered on 16 June 2006, the English Commercial Court decisively rejected all of those claims. No permission to appeal has been sought.
Linklaters’ Head of Energy Disputes, Justin Williams, who has led on the P36 litigation throughout, said:
“We have defeated a $220 million misrepresentation claim on P36, and this comes on top of a $350 million turn-around in favour of our client in 2004. I hardly need say that this is a great result for Petrobras.”
The case does not relate to the loss of P36.
