Royal Adelaide Hospital builder ordered to pay Chinese cladding company almost $2 million (original) (raw)

The builder of the Royal Adelaide Hospital has been ordered to pay a Chinese cladding company almost $2 million.

Yuanda Australia won the contract to provide the external cladding on the new hospital for $64.84 million.

But during the construction of the state's only quaternary hospital, joint venture builder Hansen Yuncken Leighton Contractors (HYLC) imposed fines of $66,349 a day from March to July 2015, claiming the façade works missed their deadline.

The fines were capped at 10 per cent of the contract price.

Court documents show in April this year, Yuanda issued a payment claim of 7.77milliontoHYLC,butthebuilderdisagreed,sayingYuandaactuallyowedHYLC7.77 million to HYLC, but the builder disagreed, saying Yuanda actually owed HYLC 7.77milliontoHYLC,butthebuilderdisagreed,sayingYuandaactuallyowedHYLC592,029.

After arguing their cases in court, the South Australian Supreme Court decided the builder owed Yuanda $1.9 million.

In his judgment, Justice David Lovell backed the calculations that had earlier been made by an adjudicator who had been brought in to try to solve the dispute over the payments between the two companies.

Yuanda Australia's parent company, Yuanda China Holdings, is one of the largest manufacturers of external cladding in the world.

Yuanda was also given the $25 million contract for the distinctive honeycomb-like façade of the hospital's neighbouring building, the SA Health and Medical Research Institute on North Terrace.

State cladding audit finds flammable material used

The use of flammable cladding came under scrutiny following the devastating Grenfell fire in London which killed 57 people and is believed to have been significantly accelerated by the use of non-compliant aluminium composite cladding on the outside of the tower.

A South Australia-wide audit of 1,117 buildings, released by the State Government in August, found the new $2.4 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital contained ACP.

The newly built hospital was one of four high-profile buildings identified in the central business district that included the flammable material, with the State Government rating their safety as either low or moderate risk.

This means that should a fire occur at one of the four buildings, there would be sufficient safety provisions in place to protect lives, the Government said.

Other buildings found to contain ACP included the newly redeveloped Adelaide Convention Centre, the Women's and Children's Hospital, and Adelaide Oval.

On the release of the audit results, Planning Minister Stephan Knoll said that despite ACP being used for the four buildings, it would be "business as usual" for those working in and visiting them.

Nevertheless, an updated fire engineering assessment would be done for each of the structures, he said.

Of the 1,117 buildings assessed, 47 require further work to improve fire safety.