TechnologyOne may sue Brisbane for $50m+

TechnologyOne has threatened to sue the Brisbane City Council (BCC) for over $50 million if it follows through with its threat to terminate a local government systems contract awarded to the company.

The company has been in dispute with the council over the progress to date with the contract, which when signed had a total value of $122 million. The project was recently found in an independent review to be 18 months late and more than $60 million over budget.

Following the publication of the report, BCC stopped paying TechnologyOne. During a press conference in January, Lord Mayor Graham Quirk publicly criticised the company over its handling of the contract, putting the company “on notice” over the delays.

BCC has blamed TechnologyOne for the delays, alleging that the company has failed to carry out work on time. But TechnologyOne has countered that it is poor governance and business processes from the council that are to blame, and accused the council of being in breach of contract.

In a response to a show cause notice from the council, TechnologyOne even accused the council of “unreasonable conduct” by deliberately endangering the completion of the project in order to engineer a termination of the contract for breach.

If the council proceeds with a “wrongful termination” the company will “immediately commence proceedings for a $50+ million damages claim”, the company warned.

But the company has offered to allow BCC to pay all outstanding invoices and voluntarily part ways to avoid the cost of a long and drawn-out court case.

“Though the Lord Mayor has on many occasions publicly stated that the project needed to be reformed, and that he was committed to doing this, BCC has taken no steps to achieve this and has hindered TechnologyOne from doing so,” TechnologyOne executive chairman and former CEO Adrian Di Marco said in a statement.

“TechnologyOne at all times remains ready, willing and able to complete the BCC contract ... If BCC lawyers had not assumed control of this project after the Lord Mayor’s inaccurate press conference in January, and common sense had prevailed, we would still be on track to meet the contracted go-live date.”

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