T. Kinsey McInturf

Representative Engagements

• Served on the legal team advising the owner on a complex design/build and early-procurement matter involving development of a new metals manufacturing facility in North Carolina, with particular emphasis on dispute avoidance, risk management, and preservation of the client’s contractual position during an impasse with the contractor over contract pricing and remaining scope. Work included strategic support on contract, purchase order, change order, and interim authorization issues; privileged analysis of options for resolving the owner-contractor impasse; and assessment of long-lead procurement, subcontractor commitments, schedule impacts, potential change and delay disputes, termination for default or convenience, deductive change orders, enforceability, subcontractor-assignment rights, work-product ownership, completion-cost exposure, and litigation risk as commercial terms and scope were finalized.
• Lead counsel for a design-build general contractor in an AAA mediation that resulted in settlement of multimillion-dollar claims brought by a specialty subcontractor arising out of disputed foundation work on a major linear rail infrastructure project in California. The dispute involved claims for unpaid contract amounts, retention, alleged extra work, unresolved change order requests, prompt-payment penalties, and attorneys’ fees, as well as defenses and counterclaims concerning performance issues, site conditions and remediation, weather-related impacts, non-conformance costs, out-of-sequence work inefficiencies, and liquidated damages. The matter requires management of complex construction, geotechnical, schedule, payment, insurance, and subcontract risk-allocation issues, consistent with representative construction litigation engagements involving unpaid change orders, delay, lost productivity, liquidated damages, construction defects, force majeure, and payment disputes.
• Member of the arbitration team representing a general contractor and its foreign parent company in an ICC arbitration seated in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, arising out of the design, engineering and construction of multiple sections of a large-diameter natural gas pipeline in British Columbia connecting a gas-producing region to an LNG terminal. The dispute involved claims and counterclaims for breach of contract, wrongful termination, project delays and impacts, good faith and honest contractual performance, quantum meruit/unjust enrichment, alleged construction defects, and claims under a parent-company guarantee and related financial assurance. The arbitration involved a three-member tribunal, extensive international discovery and document-production proceedings, confidentiality and data-protection issues, and a disputed amount quantified at more than US$780 million. The matter was scheduled for a multi-week evidentiary hearing and was resolved favorably before the hearing commenced. 
• Represented a design-build joint venture in a California arbitration arising from a major high-speed rail infrastructure project. The dispute focused on whether owner-directed permitting requirements and design revisions shifted responsibility for substantial additional work to the contractor or instead constituted compensable changes under the parties’ contract. The arbitration required the panel to address contract interpretation, change-order entitlement, alleged project-scope changes, and competing claims for damages and declaratory relief. Following an arbitration hearing in California, the panel found in favor of the contractor, rejected the owner’s claims, and determined that the contractor was the prevailing party in a dispute involving more than $150 million.
• Counsel for an industrial construction contractor in a dispute arising out of the construction of a Gen3 continuous galvanizing line at a steel-processing facility in Ohio. The contractor asserted claims for breach of contract and wrongful termination, seeking $16,845,702 for completed and approved work, as well as prejudgment interest. The project owner asserted counterclaims for breach of contract and fraud, alleging failures to comply with prudent industry standards, use commercially reasonable efforts to manage project costs, return project documents following termination, and avoid exceeding a stated final contract-price target. The aggregate value of the claims and counterclaims was more than $43 million, including the contractor’s $16,845,702 claim and the project owner’s counterclaims seeking more than $27 million. Following a two-week federal jury trial in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio in Toledo, the court granted judgment as a matter of law in favor of the contractor on the owner’s fraud counterclaim, the jury found that the owner breached the parties’ amended agreement and rejected the owner’s breach counterclaim, and the court entered judgment awarding the contractor $16,845,702.