This week’s Am Law Litigation Daily Litigator of the Week is Mike Stenglein, the head of the global construction and engineering disputes practice at King & Spalding. Stenglein and his team won an arbitration award of more than $1 billion for Colombia’s Refinería de Cartagena, or Reficar, which became public this week. 

The 484-page decision, which comes after six weeks of remote arbitration hearings in 2021, turned back all but $914,939 of the more than $400 million in counterclaims sought by Chicago Bridge & Iron, the contractor on the project. The arbitration tribunal found that the cost overruns and delays that plagued the refinery expansion and modernization project in Cartagena, Colombia were by-and-large the result of execution failures by CB&I and its affiliated entities. The tribunal found CB&I’s conduct was grossly negligent under New York law and culpa grave, its equivalent under Colombian law. With interest and costs, the total award could approach $1.9 billion.