Ecopetrol's Reficar wins court judgment in long-running dispute with McDermott (updated)

McDermott International

22/03/2024 01:53

(Adds details on contractual dispute in paragraphs 3-6)
       BOGOTA, March 21 (Reuters) - Colombia's Ecopetrol said
on Thursday its Reficar oil refinery was awarded 19.9% of the
common capital in U.S. infrastructure firm McDermott  MCDIF.PK 
in preferential shares by a judge in Amsterdam.
    The Reficar refinery is located in the Colombian city of
Cartagena, and has been the subject of a prolonged international
dispute dating back to the facility's renovation.
    In 2016, Reficar sought arbitration with McDermott
subsidiary CB&I, accusing it of doubling construction costs
during the renovation as well as failings in the engineering,
procurement and construction contract.
    Last September, Reficar asked a U.S. federal judge to freeze
certain assets of CB&I after the International Chamber of
Commerce (ICC) earlier in 2023 ordered CB&I to pay more than $1
billion to Reficar, after a judge ruled in the refinery's favor
in the long-running contractual dispute.
    Reficar had previously accused McDermott of attempting to
eliminate what it owed to the refinery belonging to Colombia's
majority state-owned oil company by seeking to restructure
certain liabilities in courts in both Britain and the
Netherlands.
    McDermott did not immediately respond to a Reuters request
for comment.

 (Reporting by Oliver Griffin; Additional reporting by David
Alire Garcia; Editing by Tom Hogue and Rashmi Aich)
 ((david.aliregarcia@thomsonreuters.com; +52 55 5282 7151;
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