Halikos loses appeal against Inpex over purported H105 Hotel agreement

Darwin property developer and hospitality giant Halikos has lost yet another court case against oil and gas giant Inpex after a years-long battle to claim damages over what the company alleges was a broken agreement.

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DARWIN property developer and hospitality giant Halikos has lost yet another court case against oil and gas giant Inpex after a years-long battle to claim damages over what the company alleges was a broken agreement.

The case first went to trial in 2017 on the basis that Halikos built the H105 Hotel on Mitchell St following a purported handshake agreement that Inpex would house workers there for a 15 year period.

However, there was never any contract signed and Inpex denied that it made the alleged promises or representations that form the basis of Halikos’ other claims.

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Justice Judith Kelly ruled against Halikos multimillion-dollar claim in August 2018, saying she did not accept that the statements of the company’s witnesses in the trial – managing director Shane Dignan and founder John Halikos – that they had only decided to go ahead with the development of H105 if they received some precommitment from Inpex.

The company appealed the decision, one of the grounds for which they said was the 21 month delay between the end of the evidence and Justice Kelly’s decision.

However, the Court of Appeal upheld the decision on Friday, saying the delay was “by itself, not sufficient to provide a ground of appeal.”

“In a case such as this there will inevitably be delay between the completion of evidence and submissions and the delivery of reasons for decision,” the decision delivered by Justices Southwood, Hiley and Riley said.

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“This was a factually complex civil trial proceeding over a number of weeks and involving the consideration of voluminous documentary evidence.”

The justices also said there were “fundamental flaws” in Halikos’ evidence.

The company will now likely be left in a deep financial hole and will have to pay Inpex’s legal fees.