Whinsfield Holdings, a Dublin-based development firm, has issued a legal letter to directors of Shapoorji Pallonji Europe accusing it of leaving a project incomplete and has sought immediate repayment of €3.4 million (Rs 30 crore).
The developer has also raised issues of “multiple breaches of contract” and “overclaimed payments” on an incomplete social housing project. It also alleged that the contractor left a 65-unit social housing scheme in Dublin incomplete, according to a report in Irish newspaper The Business Post.
The case, according to the report, dates back to 2019 when Whinsfield Holdings was awarded a multimillion-euro contract by housing agency Respond to develop a 65-unit apartment development in Sandyford. The developer engaged the Irish arm of Shapoorji Pallonji, the Indian construction conglomerate, as the main contractor for the project and work commenced in 2020.
However, work on the Sandyford development ground to a halt earlier this year after Shapoorji ran into difficulty and ceased paying subcontractors for a number of months. The project was just over two-thirds complete at the time.
According to the report, Shapoorji Pallonji Europe owed about €2 million to a range of trade creditors at the time operations ceased, with one sub-contractor alone owed more than €250,000.
When contacted, SP Group declined to comment.
In its legal letter, Whinsfield Holdings has sought immediate repayment of €3.4 million for outstanding loans to the company and for work that was paid for but never carried out. Additionally, Whinsfield is also understood to be seeking an insurance claim of up to €3 million to cover the cost of remediation works on the project for damage incurred when the site was left idle for a number of months.
Whinsfield had terminated Shapoorji’s contract as of April end.
Shapoorji Pallonji Group had entered the Irish market in 2018 and its first project was a €6 million development in Foxrock called The Terrace. The company had also won a contract to build a €45 million scheme to build a 155-unit private rental development in Donabate, north Dublin.