Major vessel operator Bhagwan Marine claims other factors, instead of the paint it allegedly recommended, could have caused the estimated $2.6 million damage to a Monadelphous subsidiary’s barge.
Monadelphous and its subsidiary Inteforge sued Perth-based Bhagwan Marine in the Supreme Court of WA, alleging the latter misled them into using a type of paint that caused corrosion to a barge’s hull.
The loss was estimated at $2.6 million, according to a recent Supreme Court judgment.
Speaking to the court on Friday, Bhagwan Marine’s lawyer Tom Porter said there was no link between Bhagwan’s conduct and the alleged damage, which could have occurred from seawater.
Inteforge alleged it was induced by Bhagwan to buy and use the anti-foul Sea Guardian paint for its Sinostruct 91 barge, after the marine vessel operator implied it could last up to five years, the court was told.
It is alleged that Bhagwan failed to warn Inteforge that the paint can cause accelerated corrosion if it was directly used on patches of bare metal, after the hull was cleaned.
However, Mr Porter told the court that Bhagwan had nothing to do with the painting works, which was done by a third party.
“Anybody that buys a tin of paint from a hardware store knows there are service preparation requirements,” he said.
“If you paint on a surface that’s been properly prepared…If you clean the surface, sand it …then it’s going to last a lot longer.
“If you buy paint from a hardware store and give it to a painter and something’s wrong, you don’t call the hardware store – you call the painter.”
The trial on Friday was held at the WA Supreme Court after Inteforge recently applied to submit several “disputed” documents for evidence.
Earlier this week, Justice Michael Lundberg reversed a previous court order that rejected some documents including surveys, assessment and projected repair works for the Sinostruct 91 barge.
A diving team’s inspection of the hull, prepared by Neptune Diving Services, is one of the documents that was recently allowed to be tendered as evidence in the trial.
In court, Mr Porter said the report did not prove the paint was the cause of the hull’s corrosion.
“For this part, the plaintiffs rely on Bhagwan Marine’s omission that application of anti-foul to bare steel can cause corrosion. The question remains whether it did cause corrosion,” he said.
“Just reading it, on the face of the report that’s in evidence, it refers to two things; seawater and blistering from anti-foul paint.
“Our primary submission is, how can we be possibly expected to deal with this or give any weight to it if the witness himself said you have two [possible causes].
“It remains the case we say that there are no documents from which the court would find that the… part of the hull by reason of corrosion was caused by direct application of anti-foul paint to the hull.”
The trial continues in the state’s Supreme Court.
