A Samsung-led consortium has won €315 million in an ICC case against a Qatari state-owned company over a terminated contract to build two metro stations in Doha.

A tribunal chaired by Canadian academic Fabien Gélinas issued an award on 28 February, ordering Qatar Rail to pay around €315 million to a joint venture in which Samsung’s construction and engineering arm holds a 50% stake. Spanish construction group OHLA owns 30% of the joint venture, with the remaining interest held by Qatar Building Company.

OHLA disclosed today that it had received the damages award. It says the €315 million awarded includes around €24 million in legal and administrative costs, but did not specify if the amounts are subject to interest.

The ICC tribunal, which also includes Swedish arbitrator Kaj Hobér of 3VB and retired Australian judge Robert McDougall KC, issued an award on liability last year – finding that Qatar Rail’s termination of the joint venture’s billion-dollar contract to build the stations and its expulsion from the work site was in breach of contract, illegal and invalid.

The joint venture is represented by A&O Shearman (previously Shearman & Sterling), while Qatar Rail is understood to be using Addleshaw Goddard. The firms were contacted.

This is the second ICC claim the joint venture has brought over its contract to develop the downtown Msheireb and northwestern Education City stations in Doha.

Qatar Rail terminated the agreement over the joint-venture’s alleged “non-compliance of certain contractual obligations,” according to OHLA. The state entity later confirmed that Greece’s Consolidated Contractors Group had taken over the project, and the stations eventually opened in 2018 and 2019.

The joint venture filed its first claim in 2017, seeking around €372 million.

The case was heard by a tribunal chaired by Sweden’s Sigvard Jarvin and including John Marrin KC of Keating Chambers in London and Wolfgang Peter. In 2018, Qatar Rail failed to remove Jarvin from the panel on the basis of his age, as well as Peter based on his expression of support for his co-arbitrator.

OHLA later announced that the tribunal had declared itself incompetent to hear the case because the requirements agreed in the arbitration clause were not complied with at the time the request for arbitration was filed.

The joint venture filed the second ICC case in 2020.

OHLA still has several pending arbitrations over other projects, including a billion-euro ICC case brought by a Qatari state-backed foundation over a medical research centre in Doha. OHLA is represented in that case by A&O Shearman and Garrigues, while the foundation is using Quinn Emanuel.

OHL, Samsung C&T and Qatar Building Company v Qatar Railways Company

In the second ICC case

Tribunal

• Fabien Gelinas (Canada) (chair)
• Kaj Hobér (Sweden) (appointed by the claimant)
• Robert McDougall KC (Australia) (appointed by the respondent)

Counsel to the claimant

Partner Alex Bevan in London (began the case while at Shearman & Sterling)

Counsel to Qatar Rail

• Addleshaw Goddard (replaced Quinn Emanuel)
• Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan (until replaced by Addleshaw Goddard)

Partner James Bremen in London

In the first ICC case (ICC 23288/AYZ)

Tribunal

• Sigvard Jarvin (Sweden) (chair)
• Wolfgang Peter (Switzerland) (appointed by the claimant)
• John Marrin KC (UK) (appointed by the respondent)

Counsel to the claimant

Partner Alex Bevan in London

Counsel to Qatar Rail

• Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

Partner James Bremen in London