[00:00:00] Speaker 03:
Our fourth argued case this morning is GSC Construction, Incorporated, versus Secretary of the Army, 2021, 1803.

[00:00:09] Speaker 03:
Mr. Kernan.

[00:00:10] Speaker 03:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:00:13] Speaker 04:
Your Honor, good morning.

[00:00:17] Speaker 04:
It pleads the court.

[00:00:19] Speaker 04:
I'll thank you for your time this morning.

[00:00:22] Speaker 04:
I'm here on behalf of GSC Construction, Incorporated.

[00:00:25] Speaker 04:
I'm Patrick Kernan.

[00:00:27] Speaker 04:
Before the court today, the case

[00:00:29] Speaker 04:
dealing with government time to voice responsibility for a faulty solicitation to confuse it over uniform facility criteria on a small, up-zone business does not take any responsibility to give any delays to that contractor.

[00:00:48] Speaker 04:
That contractor was a successful contractor on our project.

[00:00:52] Speaker 04:
On this mall, I should say warehouse, they were basically put out of business because of the comment.

[00:01:00] Speaker 01:
And the area- Just to clarify, it's late in the week for me.

[00:01:04] Speaker 01:
Are you talking about Harper, or are you talking about some of your subcontractors?

[00:01:09] Speaker 04:
No, I'm talking about GSC Construction, my client.

[00:01:11] Speaker 01:
No, no, no.

[00:01:12] Speaker 01:
But you said that somebody else, you were casting the blame on somebody else or the responsibility for the problems on someone else.

[00:01:20] Speaker 04:
Yes, Your Honor, I was casting the blame on the government in this case, and on the four particular issues before the court.

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And I'd like to address four issues before the court.

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The first, as set out in our briefs, is the excavation work.

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The second is the coal-formed steel work.

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The third is the issue of waiver within this contract.

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And fourth, the issue of thick-face and fair dealing with the sector funding on this contract.

[00:01:47] Speaker 01:
So is your argument, sir, this is Judge Prouse, is your argument that it was not your responsibility to do this excavation work?

[00:01:55] Speaker 04:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:01:56] Speaker 04:
And GSE interpreted this solicitation reasonably in our opinion and in GSE's opinion when they're submitting the bid.

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Their review of the bid was consistent with the solicitation specifications.

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And if you look at the specifications themselves,

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If you look at the solicitation, it refers to having complete specifications for the infrastructure contractor.

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The infrastructure contractor is responsible for excavation and building and site.

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those specifications in order to form a gig.

[00:02:42] Speaker 04:
When reviewing that to those specifications, if you look at paragraph 3.2.1 in appendix 4.3.2.2, it states specifically that the infrastructure, or TE, and that contractor, which was Harbor, would dig down eight feet and insert an earth fill.

[00:03:01] Speaker 04:
So the contractor bidding on this contract

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I'm pleased to know what kind of site I'm going to be given by the government.

[00:03:09] Speaker 02:
Is that appendix part of the contract?

[00:03:11] Speaker 02:
I thought there was some kind of header that said, for information only, not part of the contract.

[00:03:17] Speaker 04:
It was included in the contract, but it did say for information only into a reasonable contract.

[00:03:22] Speaker 02:
Did it also say not part of the contract?

[00:03:26] Speaker 04:
It means that that work is not part of its scope, but it informs the pit of the contract.

[00:03:35] Speaker 02:
What about the other provisions that are right in the contract itself that talk about things like the contractor is responsible for any additional fill or cut in order to meet the required minimum or maximum finished floor and any specific site preparation required to accommodate the foundation design prepared or proposed by the contractor?

[00:04:00] Speaker 02:
And the contractor shall accept the site as is and be solely responsible for all final site preparation, including any excavation if necessary, placement of select fill if necessary, and any testing required to accommodate the proposed foundation.

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And as I understand it, the foundation that GSC selected was the Waffle Mat Foundation.

[00:04:24] Speaker 02:
And so I guess what's wrong with reading these provisions is an understanding that

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GSE's obligation, among other things, was to remove and replace any undesirable fill and replace it with the needed kind of fill that would accommodate the waffle mat foundation you chose.

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So the GSE's interpretation, and it's a reasonable interpretation,

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is that those applications and drawing modes that you're dealing with talk about once you have the basic building site as was required in the infrastructure contract, that they did need to do the finishing work on that site.

[00:05:11] Speaker 04:
But the huge excavation, it was not contemplated in the contract.

[00:05:16] Speaker 02:
Well, I mean, there's another place where

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the contract says the government will provide general site preparation and grading right including brush clearing removal of rocks and rough grading and that was Harper's responsibility as I understand it but rough grading whatever that is is a much more limited type of

[00:05:42] Speaker 02:
earthwork than the kinds of excavation and placement of new select fill that is specifically assigned as being GSC's role in the contract.

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The infrastructure contractor itself tells us what the building site grading policy specifically says.

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It's excavation eight feet down in Earth Hill into that foundation.

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So the reasonable contractor doing that, I'm going to get a site where it's already been done.

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And that's informed the reason that GSC

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It really doesn't make sense when you think about it.

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Harper had 120 days to excavate this limited grading, allegedly, in the contract.

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And then after they had done this grading in the contract, the reasonable interpretation, as others would argue, is that GSE was to come in and dig right, dig the whole thing up, and then put it in their fill.

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And then after, Harper had done all this grading.

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And the judge and the floor of our opinion indicates that it's not reasonable because

[00:07:10] Speaker 04:
was an opportune condition on the project.

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The government, the board said it was reasonable for the government to use Harper because they had equipment on site and they had experience with these conditions.

[00:07:24] Speaker 04:
You know, and that is because it was appropriate and reasonable to use Harper, but for the excavation of the building sites which was improving their contract, the government seeks to place that on the USB.

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With respect to the coal platform steel issue,

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The issue here is that we have uniform facility criteria.

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These criteria are sensitive information for official use only.

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You can see that mark.

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It was a dispute in the case below.

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They had to have a motion to compel in order to get those UFC standards.

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The UFC developed their criteria.

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They made a mistake with respect to the initial submission using the 2012 criteria.

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But the government did not

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in applying the standards for seven months.

[00:08:13] Speaker 02:
Isn't this the issue where GSC actually asked the Army Corps which standard do we use, 2007 or 2012, and the Army Corps correctly said use 2007, and then for whatever reason, GSC started filling out all the forms applying the 2012 standard.

[00:08:32] Speaker 02:
Is that right?

[00:08:36] Speaker 04:
Yes.

[00:08:36] Speaker 02:
But the contract doesn't the contract have a provision in it that specifically says that it's GSC's obligation to make sure that all the forms and designs and specifications are are filled out correctly and accurately and

[00:09:01] Speaker 04:
I'm going to.

[00:09:07] Speaker 04:
I'm.

[00:09:09] Speaker 04:
I'm.

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I'm.

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to apply these standards properly.

[00:09:20] Speaker 04:
You know, the government has an inherent authority to apply the standards.

[00:09:25] Speaker 04:
You can't voice the whole responsibility on the small business HUBZone contractor.

[00:09:30] Speaker 04:
For seven months, they couldn't assist them in figuring out the standard.

[00:09:34] Speaker 04:
And it's not that straightforward.

[00:09:36] Speaker 04:
We're talking about, was this building within the perimeter?

[00:09:39] Speaker 04:
You can't have access to the documents because they're sensitive.

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on them for official use only.

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So if you look at the emails, they had a dig and dig to get this information and refuse to provide the information to TSE.

[00:09:54] Speaker 04:
You know, so it's not as simple as, you know, 27, which is 2012, it became more complicated because of the obfuscation of the government.

[00:10:00] Speaker 02:
What about the FAR provision that says, you know, if the contractor makes a mistake in filling out the forms that and the government doesn't

[00:10:11] Speaker 02:
identify it in a timely way, that mistake is still going to be, that lays at the feet of the contractor, not the government.

[00:10:25] Speaker 04:
With respect to that thought provision, there is mutual responsibility.

[00:10:31] Speaker 04:
And in forming a remedy, the board and the government foist all the responsibility on the contractor.

[00:10:41] Speaker 04:
This is basically, the best case scenario is a mutual mistake.

[00:10:46] Speaker 04:
When there's a mutual mistake, the court backs the remedy that accounts for both parties of both their mistakes, not voice all responsibility, several months of delay on the contract.

[00:10:59] Speaker 04:
With respect to the third issue, waiver issue, the government waited 21 days after the first

[00:11:10] Speaker 04:
on completion date, February 3rd, and did not preserve the rights at that time.

[00:11:17] Speaker 04:
GSC submitted a detailed request in response to this show cause, laying out pieces of delay between contracts.

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The critical error in the government analysis in the court's decision is that

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They don't account for any of the time for weather delays.

[00:11:32] Speaker 04:
They don't account for any of the time for the obvious unforeseen conditions.

[00:11:36] Speaker 04:
They gave Hawker modifications to account for the unforeseen conditions.

[00:11:39] Speaker 04:
They didn't get the GSE anytime for that.

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And then the third day was a delayed start date.

[00:11:46] Speaker 04:
So the government seeks to hang on to that February 3rd date, but it's undisputed that that February 3rd date is not relevant.

[00:11:55] Speaker 04:
It's not applicable anymore because of the undisputed delay that was never granted in GSE.

[00:12:00] Speaker 02:
I'm sorry, are you saying that the contracting officer never reserved the rights to terminate for default?

[00:12:10] Speaker 04:
They did not reserve for 21 days, and they did not reestablish a completion date that GSE could bill for.

[00:12:20] Speaker 04:
21 days after the completion date,

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They then came forward and said, we're reserving our rights.

[00:12:30] Speaker 04:
But they never at all addressed the undisputed delay that GSEA was entitled to, in respect to the weighted delay.

[00:12:37] Speaker 04:
So it was 34 days.

[00:12:38] Speaker 04:
In respect to the delayed start date, it was 20 days.

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In respect to the unforeseen condition, it was at least 24 days.

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So if you can't stick with a February 3rd date, it is completely no longer relevant unless you account for those delays and establish a new date.

[00:12:56] Speaker 03:
Counsel, you're well into your rebuttal time.

[00:12:59] Speaker 03:
You can continue, or we'll save it for you.

[00:13:03] Speaker 04:
I'll conclude here, and I'm going to go to the rest of my time.

[00:13:08] Speaker 04:
For those reasons, the court would ask you to, first, the signal of war, as it was arbitrary pre-ship, it did not account for the balkan specifications and mutual mistake on the part of the government and the contractor.

[00:13:24] Speaker 04:
And a lot of this uproar.

[00:13:28] Speaker 03:
We will save the rest of your time, Ms.

[00:13:33] Speaker 03:
Akers.

[00:13:35] Speaker 00:
Good morning, Your Honors, and may it please the court.

[00:13:37] Speaker 00:
This appeal is about GSC raising a number of undeveloped and unsupported arguments, challenging the board's factual conclusions, but under the guise of legal arguments.

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GSC has failed to establish any legal error in the board's determination here, and therefore the court should affirm.

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I'll go first towards the argument raised here regarding the excavation.

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which was actually appealed as a prior material breach argument.

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As we explained in our brief, GSC did not raise a prior material breach argument below.

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And so therefore, it can't establish the board erred by failing to consider this in sustaining the termination for default.

[00:14:19] Speaker 01:
Can I just ask you a general question?

[00:14:21] Speaker 01:
Your friend pointed us to a portion of the appendix, which Judge Chen obviously correctly pointed out was not part of the contract.

[00:14:28] Speaker 01:
And it says this is for information only.

[00:14:31] Speaker 01:
Is there no legal import?

[00:14:34] Speaker 01:
to documents such as this that purport to explain or give guidance, but you can't rely on them at the end of the day?

[00:14:45] Speaker 01:
Is that the notion about this?

[00:14:47] Speaker 00:
Correct, Your Honor.

[00:14:48] Speaker 00:
And to make one clarification, the contract does say not in contract.

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And it also says for information only.

[00:14:54] Speaker 00:
I think there was a question earlier on that.

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So the reason that that was given is because there are two contractors working on the site.

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And as the government explained,

[00:15:02] Speaker 00:
some of their work overlapped.

[00:15:04] Speaker 00:
So it's of course helpful for the government to provide part of the other solicitation or specifications to both contractors so that they know whose responsibility is divvied.

[00:15:14] Speaker 00:
But there's no legal import for GCS

[00:15:17] Speaker 00:
on the solicitation for another contractor.

[00:15:21] Speaker 00:
And in fact, GSC's argument, it's a little confusing.

[00:15:25] Speaker 00:
It essentially argues that everything in that appendix withdraws work from its own solicitation.

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So GSC would have to look at its solicitation or its scope of work

[00:15:38] Speaker 00:
and say, these are all of our items, and then go through that attachment.

[00:15:42] Speaker 01:
But it is true just generally, maybe not in this case, for one to compare the two to clarify where my responsibilities end and yours begin, right?

[00:15:52] Speaker 01:
That's the point of them getting it, right?

[00:15:55] Speaker 00:
Correct.

[00:15:55] Speaker 00:
But the argument that GSC makes here is that

[00:15:58] Speaker 00:
It believes that certain items of work were in that appendix, and the board erred by failing to identify that.

[00:16:06] Speaker 00:
But GSC actually raises no contractual interpretation or provides no analysis as to how that is true.

[00:16:13] Speaker 00:
Appendix pages 24 to 27, the board goes through four reasons why this work was within GSC's scope of work.

[00:16:22] Speaker 00:
It also addresses GSC's four arguments as to why it wasn't, and it explains and analyzes

[00:16:28] Speaker 00:
why the contract doesn't support GSC's interpretation.

[00:16:31] Speaker 00:
Now on appeal, GSC is arguing, well, that's not right.

[00:16:35] Speaker 00:
But it doesn't provide any contractual interpretation.

[00:16:38] Speaker 00:
It doesn't go so far as to even cite the contractual language and explain why the board's interpretation was wrong.

[00:16:46] Speaker 00:
So not only is there no prior material breach because it wasn't raised below, there's no identification of a legal heir here.

[00:16:54] Speaker 00:
on behalf of the board.

[00:16:55] Speaker 00:
I was just going to make one other point.

[00:17:00] Speaker 00:
Even if the court were to find for GCS on this one excusable delay, that's not enough for GFC to overturn the default termination.

[00:17:12] Speaker 00:
There were five delays that GSC asserted were contributing to its delayed performance.

[00:17:18] Speaker 00:
And it would have had to show that at least three of those delays were excusable to overturn the termination for default.

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So by failing to appeal the other delays, it's really of no regard whether the board was right on this singular one or not.

[00:17:33] Speaker 02:
Did the board make that finding?

[00:17:35] Speaker 02:
about adding up all the different amounts of delay from different issues?

[00:17:38] Speaker 00:
It did, Your Honor.

[00:17:39] Speaker 00:
It did.

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And it said that it would have to at least find three.

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And then it provided a footnote and said it could be these three or it could be these other two.

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And we cited that in our brief.

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It wasn't challenged by GSC.

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And in fact, the board gave deference to GSC's expert and used its expert dates and the delay that it calculated to make that determination.

[00:18:02] Speaker 00:
Really, all inferences are in favor of GSC on those delays.

[00:18:07] Speaker 01:
I just want to ask you generally about this DeVito doctrine.

[00:18:11] Speaker 01:
I may have encountered it, but I have no recollection of that now.

[00:18:14] Speaker 01:
That's a court of claims case.

[00:18:16] Speaker 01:
Has our court ever, or was that our predecessor court of claims?

[00:18:21] Speaker 00:
Primarily your predecessor court, although I have found four federal circuit cases addressing DeVito.

[00:18:28] Speaker 01:
So when you say it's been, well, when the suggestion is that it's been watered down or calved or whatever by us,

[00:18:35] Speaker 00:
No, Your Honor.

[00:18:37] Speaker 00:
No.

[00:18:38] Speaker 00:
The DeVito doctrine has been applied very strictly and, like we explained in our brief, hardly ever in construction cases.

[00:18:44] Speaker 00:
This court has applied it.

[00:18:45] Speaker 00:
I think the best case is the McDonald case that we cited, I believe, on page 49 of our brief.

[00:18:52] Speaker 00:
And that was not in a construction case.

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It's very difficult for this court or the boards or the lower courts to find that DeVito applies in construction cases.

[00:19:01] Speaker 00:
because the whole point of DeVito is that there's reasonable reliance to the contractor's detriment on the government's failure to terminate within a reasonable amount of time.

[00:19:12] Speaker 00:
And in construction cases, where we have a contractor who is being paid monthly on progress payments for all of the work that it's completed, that's under the FAR, there's no detrimental reliance because the contractor's actually paid for their work on a monthly basis.

[00:19:27] Speaker 00:
So it'd be difficult for a contractor to say, I had no idea you were going to terminate me.

[00:19:32] Speaker 00:
I continued to expend resources and time and effort, and now I'm out all of this money because you terminated me before I could generate a work product.

[00:19:41] Speaker 00:
In the construction industry, it's different.

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Every month, they submit a bill and say a progress payment.

[00:19:47] Speaker 00:
They say, this is exactly what we performed, what work we performed, and the government pays.

[00:19:52] Speaker 00:
And there are provisions in construction contracts, like there are here, where even if the government terminates the contractor, the contractor is still paid for the work that was performed.

[00:20:01] Speaker 00:
So there's no detrimental reliance, like is the case in a service contract, for example, or the supply and research contract, like the McDonald case we cited.

[00:20:11] Speaker 00:
And so the applicability of that doctrine here is very limited.

[00:20:15] Speaker 00:
And even if the court were to apply it here, there are two factors, two elements, neither of which GSC has even attempted to meet.

[00:20:23] Speaker 00:
First, it has to show that the government waited an unreasonable amount of time after the contract completion date, and there were circumstances that indicated forbearance.

[00:20:33] Speaker 00:
Here, the board made a determination that 135 days after the contract completion date, the date of termination, that was a reasonable period of time.

[00:20:41] Speaker 00:
And if we compare 135 days

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time to the other cases that are cited by GSC.

[00:20:48] Speaker 00:
There's really no comparison.

[00:20:50] Speaker 00:
The other cases where the board has found that there was an unreasonable amount of time are two years, 13 months later.

[00:20:57] Speaker 00:
And in this case, also, there were no circumstances that indicated forbearance because the government provided notice three times that it was considering termination and that it did not waive any of its contractual rights.

[00:21:11] Speaker 00:
Now, GFC contends that the government waited until after the termination, or excuse me, after the contract completion date to make this assertion.

[00:21:20] Speaker 00:
But that's just not true.

[00:21:21] Speaker 00:
There was a January

[00:21:23] Speaker 00:
show cause notice that was submitted which is before the contract completion date that said we're considering terminating you this is the contract completion date you are behind we waive none of our contractual rights and we do not condone any delinquency so several weeks before the contract completion date

[00:21:41] Speaker 00:
The government indicated that.

[00:21:43] Speaker 00:
Then a couple weeks after the contract completion date had passed, the government submitted a letter in February to GSC and again said, we don't waive our rights, we don't condone this delinquency, but we'll give you an opportunity to try and finish the contract.

[00:21:59] Speaker 00:
Then again, one month later, the government issued a second show cause notice and stated all of those things again.

[00:22:05] Speaker 00:
So there were no circumstances here that indicate forbearance.

[00:22:09] Speaker 00:
None of the cases that GSC has cited have the government sending numerous letters to the contractor.

[00:22:17] Speaker 00:
and the board finding that there was an application of the DeVito doctrine.

[00:22:21] Speaker 00:
So it's just simply not applicable on the facts.

[00:22:24] Speaker 00:
And then the second element of DeVito, which we've already discussed, is the reasonable reliance to the contractor's detriment.

[00:22:31] Speaker 00:
Here, GSC was paid for its work.

[00:22:33] Speaker 00:
There was no detrimental reliance at all.

[00:22:36] Speaker 00:
The liquidated damages provision was in the contract.

[00:22:40] Speaker 00:
That's something that the board has often considered.

[00:22:42] Speaker 00:
So even if this court were to apply DeVito here, which we don't think it's appropriate,

[00:22:47] Speaker 00:
Neither of the elements are met, and GSC has not even attempted to establish either of those elements in its brief.

[00:22:55] Speaker 00:
And then just briefly, Your Honors, there are a few other issues.

[00:22:58] Speaker 00:
There's the issue of the alleged breach of good faith and fair dealing that is raised here.

[00:23:03] Speaker 00:
Again, this is incredibly underdeveloped in the brief by GSC.

[00:23:09] Speaker 00:
There's essentially no facts.

[00:23:10] Speaker 00:
There's no legal analysis.

[00:23:12] Speaker 00:
It just says the government breached this good faith and fair dealing obligation.

[00:23:17] Speaker 00:
There's nothing to support that.

[00:23:18] Speaker 00:
And there's been no error identified from the board's decision.

[00:23:22] Speaker 00:
And then lastly, there was some discussion about subcontractors and the

[00:23:28] Speaker 00:
the amount to which they contributed to the delay in the opening brief.

[00:23:32] Speaker 00:
And there was no error identified there either.

[00:23:34] Speaker 02:
And then finally, the argument must have been that the government was financially squeezing GSE, which made it hard for GSE to work with its subcontractors.

[00:23:45] Speaker 00:
That does seem to be the contention on appeal, Your Honor.

[00:23:48] Speaker 00:
There's nothing cited to that in the record.

[00:23:50] Speaker 00:
And that's just another example that GSE is really actually challenging the factual determinations that the board made below.

[00:23:57] Speaker 00:
The board judge, in the concurring opinion, went to great lengths to explain all of the issues that the contractors had that contributed to the delay, but that was never tied to the government's fault.

[00:24:09] Speaker 00:
And so that's really just a factual challenge that hasn't really even been properly challenged.

[00:24:13] Speaker 00:
And the last thing I'll say is that council opened here today saying that there were defective specifications.

[00:24:19] Speaker 00:
There are some notes throughout its brief referring to

[00:24:22] Speaker 00:
defective specifications, but no defective specification claim has actually been raised in this appeal or below.

[00:24:30] Speaker 00:
And so we ask that the court doesn't need to address that either.

[00:24:33] Speaker 02:
Getting back to Earthwork, there's a provision in the contract somewhere that says something like, within 120 days, Harper shall provide a complete pad site to GSE.

[00:24:46] Speaker 02:
What does the contract mean by a complete pad site?

[00:24:51] Speaker 02:
I believe one argument could be that all earth work has been completed.

[00:24:59] Speaker 00:
And that's certainly GSC's argument.

[00:25:01] Speaker 00:
The board did address that, I believe on page 25 of the appendix, and let's look at the contract as a whole.

[00:25:07] Speaker 00:
If the contract says in numerous parts that GSC is responsible

[00:25:11] Speaker 00:
for removal and replacement of the fill.

[00:25:15] Speaker 00:
And then GSC is arguing that that provision your honor cites includes the fill.

[00:25:20] Speaker 00:
Those two things seem to conflict because the fill is addressed in other parts of the contract.

[00:25:25] Speaker 00:
That's an argument that GSC seems to make here today, an argument that is not made in its brief and was not part of its arguments really below.

[00:25:34] Speaker 02:
So what does the contract mean when it says complete, a complete pad site?

[00:25:40] Speaker 00:
I believe, Your Honor, that it refers to the actual structure and not the underneath, the replacement and the removal of the fill underneath.

[00:25:51] Speaker 00:
If there are no further questions, we ask that the court affirm.

[00:25:55] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:25:56] Speaker 03:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:25:59] Speaker 03:
Mr. Kernan has a couple of minutes for rebuttal.

[00:26:03] Speaker 04:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:26:05] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:26:06] Speaker 04:
I want to address three points.

[00:26:08] Speaker 04:
First, in respect to the issue

[00:26:10] Speaker 04:
not raising up issues to cover the delays.

[00:26:13] Speaker 04:
If you review the case that the board cited when it talks about the amount of time you need to get to the delays, it was the Empire Energy case.

[00:26:20] Speaker 04:
And the Empire Energy case talked about not being able to finish the contract.

[00:26:26] Speaker 04:
It didn't say you needed day-for-day comparison between what the delay was versus what you're asking for.

[00:26:36] Speaker 04:
So if you grab one of the delays and if you

[00:26:39] Speaker 04:
as we said in our break, you grant the excuse of delay for the sub-base or you grant the delay for co-formed steel, it basically gets you to the final date.

[00:26:51] Speaker 04:
No reason was assumed that they would be able to perform in the period of time in accordance with the Empire Energy Management case.

[00:26:58] Speaker 04:
With respect to the good-faith and fair-dealers,

[00:27:01] Speaker 04:
Your honor, you are correct that our position is the government didn't fulfill their obligations to act with good faith and fair dealing because they did squeeze the contractors.

[00:27:12] Speaker 04:
There are references in our brief.

[00:27:15] Speaker 04:
One, they did not pay a pay application number six that's for site storage, and they also, in GSC,

[00:27:22] Speaker 04:
contributed about $2 million from its own pocket to get these subcontractors moving.

[00:27:28] Speaker 04:
With respect to that, in our opinion, that breaches a fair bit of the obligation towards good faith and fair dealing.

[00:27:39] Speaker 04:
With respect to the foundation of this one final point on that, the government seeks to avoid the interpretation of their own contract on the contractors

[00:27:50] Speaker 04:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:28:13] Speaker 03:
We appreciate the arguments of both counsel and the cases submitted.

[00:28:17] Speaker 03:
That concludes our argument.