Refineries and petrochemical plants need process licenses and catalysts to produce clean fuels and base chemicals. These processes are usually developed by independent technology licensors or even competitors in the same business. The economic interests of parties involved are large due to the market opportunity, environmental compliance, or improved competitive position. Most of the time these licenses and catalysts perform as guaranteed by the process licensor and catalyst supplier. In such cases a harmonious relationship develops between the licensor and the licensee and everybody is satisfied with the deal. Sometimes the agreements around the process license are violated or the performance guarantees on the catalyst are not met and the licensor and process / catalyst user come into a dispute.
Most of the time such a dispute can be resolved by a fact-based root cause investigation, and the desire of both parties to have a long-term beneficial relationship. The parties agree on who is responsible for the deviation and who should be compensated and by how much. Often times the agreement already contains some language to resolve common cases of deviations and corresponding compensation. However, sometimes the dispute is not resolved to the satisfaction of one of the parties and a conflict emerges. Such a conflict can evolve over time and finally result in arbitration in front of a court. Obviously, this is not what anybody is looking for, but once all other attempts to resolve the issue have failed this is the last resort.
In case of arbitration in front of a court it is important to have a legal team work with independent experts from Catalyst Intelligence to get all the facts, communication and interpretation to argue the case in front of the court, and to make clear why you do not agree with the interpretation taken by the opponent.
Experts from Catalyst Intelligence have assisted chemical plants and their legal teams on several arbitration cases by writing expert reports, rebuttals, and by acting as an independent witness in the court hearing. We like to delve into the original agreement and investigate what has been done and communicated by both parties in the time leading up to the dispute. Our role is to help the legal team get the picture straight and to create a clear reasoning (case) with all supporting evidence.
In case you think agreements around process licensing or catalyst supply have been violated reach out to the experts of Catalyst Intelligence and they will be happy to assist you with a clear fact-based analysis of what was agreed and what was actually delivered or done. This clarity will help to finally agree on the entire situation, find a resolution, and move on.
