Alberta Court orders recalculation of $1.4B in damages, supports Dow in Nova lawsuit
Both sides are welcoming an Alberta Court of Appeal ruling that supports a trial judge decision in favour of Dow Chemical Canada over Nova Chemicals Corp. but orders a recalculation of its award of $1.4 billion in damages.
The appeal court agreed with the original judge who ruled in 2018 that Dow was correct in asserting that a jointly owned ethane cracker at the Joffre petrochemical complex in central Alberta had been operated by Nova at less-than-agreed-upon volumes for a 10-year period until 2012.
The ethylene-production facility east of Red Deer is considered to be one of the largest facilities of its kind.
The cracker, dubbed “E3” because it was the third at the complex, was built by Nova and Union Carbide through a 1997 joint-venture agreement and designed to supply ethylene feedstock for a new polyethylene plant being built by Union Carbide.