Titans score court ruling win in dispute

A construction company has vowed to fight on until it gets paid by the Gold Coast
Titans despite the Queensland Supreme Court on Tuesday nullifying a ruling that the
NRL club must pay it $3 million.
The Building and Construction Industry Payments Agency on Monday ruled the Titans
owed developer Alex Simpson's Simcorp more than $3 million for work on their
partly-built Centre of Excellence at Robina.
But the club took the matter to the Supreme Court in Brisbane.
Justice James Douglas on Tuesday ruled the decision from the independent
adjudicator, appointed under the Building and Construction Industry Payments Act
2004, was an invalid claim.
Justice Douglas ordered a stay of proceedings in the Supreme Court by Simcorp until
payments of court costs have been made to the Titans.
The Titans have accused Simcorp of owing the club more than $300,000.
Titans boss Michael Searle said the time had come for Simcorp to "pay his people".
"Today's Supreme Court decision vindicates the club and the position we have taken,"
Searle said on the Gold Coast on Tuesday.
"I think the time has come for him (Simpson) to pay his people and we move forward.
"We hope this brings the current matter to a head.
"But we are also prepared to move forward and if the matter continues, it continues.
"We will deal with it the way we have. We just tell the truth. We tell the truth and
move forward."
However, Simpson told reporters on Tuesday that he would lodge a second claim with a
building authority.
"To me, all this has done is bought the Titans four weeks because tomorrow we will
just re-lodge our claim - we will eventually get paid," he said.
But Searle said the club was used to fighting for what it wanted.
"It took us six years to get a licence, we had to knock down every door, we had to
scrap for years ... the players know we go about business and we do it the right
way," he said.
"We won't be involved with cheap stunts and I think they appreciate the way we go
about business so it doesn't appear to have affected them.
"The only losers out of this at the moment are probably the lost time our club's had
to endure and the sub-contractors who still aren't paid."
Searle also denied the club was short of cash, however, he admitted the Titans had
asked the NRL for financial help.
"We approached the NRL to assist us on a short term basis, that's not uncommon a
number of clubs do it - it was just basically to give us some surety moving forward
and some comfort," he said.
"Clearly the Centre of Excellence is a state-of-the-art project and we're excited
about being in there sooner rather than later and we have accelerated that to a
certain extent.
"Today makes it likely we'll be in there a little bit faster."