TELUS ends protracted arbitration dispute with commercial customer in BC Supreme Court decision

On May 14, 2010, the Supreme Court of British Columbia issued its oral decision registering arbitration awards in favour of TELUS Corporation, a leading national telecommunications firm, as court orders, bringing to an end a complex multi-year dispute between TELUS and a commercial customer. The dispute began with an accounting issue that both parties agreed could be settled through arbitration. The customer argued it overpaid by $1 million while TELUS said it had actually underpaid by more than $800,000. The arbitration process became protracted when the customer challenged the arbitrator's jurisdiction, sought to appeal a series of interim awards, commenced a variety of proceedings in other venues including the BC Supreme Court and the CRTC, and boycotted the hearing on the merits of the case. Ultimately TELUS was successful in the arbitration, and received an award for over $800,000 plus awards for full indemnity costs of both the jurisdiction and merits hearings. Subsequently, TELUS successfully resisted an attempt by the customer to challenge the final award, and obtained judgments in the BC Supreme Court registering the arbitration awards as court orders. Fasken Martineau advised TELUS in these proceedings with a team that included David Wotherspoon, Kibben Jackson and Keri Gammon.