Tim Roberts misses paper target in $450m Bombardier jet row

Billionaire businessman Tim Roberts has suffered a points loss against Canadian aircraft giant Bombardier as they prepare for a $450 million-plus legal battle over soured jet purchase and sales arrangements. Supreme Court judge Gail Archer has given Mr Roberts access to an extra two years of documents related to a rolling jet purchase and sales program that allegedly guaranteed minimum profits for the former construction mogul. But Justice Archer has refused to broaden the scope of documents that Bombardier must give Mr Roberts as he tries to shed light on Bombardier’s luxury jet dealers. After his family sold the Multiplex construction empire in 2007, the cashed-up Mr Roberts was in a prime position at the end of the global financial crisis to enter into a lucrative arrangement to help lift Bombardier out of a sales slump. Alleged oral agreements and formal written contracts allegedly underpinned AVWest purchasing 67 aircraft between April 2009 and September 2015, usually in batches of four or more jets. The deal allegedly involved Bombardier undertaking to find buyers for the newly minted jet and to help push the sales through. AVWest managed to sell 58 planes and made ten of millions of dollars in profits. Bombardier has denied the existence of an alleged series of oral agreements related to AVWest’s advanced purchase of aircraft and its global sales team then helping to sell those ordered jets. The arrangement soured in mid-2015, around the time of big executive changes at the Canadian group and AVWest has been in a legal wrestle with Bombardier since 2017. As they now prepare for a trial, Mr Roberts’ legal team went to the Supreme Court last month seeking internal records about incentives for Bombardier staff and agents to sell planes. AVWest lawyers also sought documents providing evidence of Bombardier’s arrangements with other big-ticket buyers. Bombardier claimed any such documents would be highly commercially sensitive. AVWest’s lawyers argued Bombardier’s case was focused on a claim that oral agreements either did not exist or were not enforceable under New York law, which the Canadian group has claimed governs its sales contracts. The AVWest team said the existence of comparable oral arrangements and their termination was relevant to Bombardier’s conduct under alleged oral agreements at the heart of these proceedings. Rejecting AVWest’s application for documents on third-party arrangements, Justice Archer said their relevance was “indirect and speculative”. She said there was nothing before her about whether Bombardier intended to call evidence about its corporate policies and to claim those policies prevented it acting in the way alleged by AVWest. Her view on access to these documents might change if Bombardier decided to adduce evidence about its policies or it not entering into oral agreements. But she ruled orders forcing Bombardier to share documents created until September 2017 related to its alleged deals with AVWest. Currently, the orders cover until the end of 2015. After Justice Archer handed down her rulings, Bombardier’s lawyer pushed for AVWest to pay 100 per cent of its legal costs for this row. AVWest lawyer Konrad de Kerloy said his client had been successful in the timing applications and orders could be made on the other categories depending on how the case developed. “It was not a KO,” he said. Justice Archer ordered the Roberts company pay 60 per cent of Bombardier’s costs.