Supreme Court of Canada to hear appeal of aggrieved B.C. contractor

A court ruling in British Columbia has the construction industry sitting up and taking notice. In December last year the B.C. Court of Appeal dealt with a case where the owner — the B.C. government — disputed that it should pay compensation to a contractor whose bid for a project had complied with the terms of the tender, but who had not been awarded the contract. Instead the province had awarded its contract to a non-compliant bidder.
In making its case in Tercon Contractors Ltd. v. British Columbia, the province relied on an exclusion clause it had placed in the tender which stated “no [bidding contractor] shall have any claim for any compensation of any kind whatsoever” from the tendering process.
In July the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to hear the appeal of the contractor — Tercon — of the B.C. Appeal Court decision. In the past the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that although an owner need not always accept the lowest bid in the tendering process, it must give the work to a bidder whose bid is compliant i.e. it does not violate the tender instructions.
Source: McLennan Ross E-mail Alert, July 17, 2008