Monticello Live

SIEMENS INDUSTRY, INC. vs. CITY OF MONTICELLO vs. SIEMENS A.G.

Listed here are the primary focal points of the CITY OF MONTICELLO’S ANSWER TO THE FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT AND COUNTERCLAIM AND ADDITION OF COUNTER-DEFENDANT, as submitted to the US District Court, in response to SEIMENS recent federal lawsuit against the The City of Monticello, the city’s special attorney, Cliff Gibson, has answered SIEMENS’ lawsuit against the city.

The City states that both Siemens Industry (and Siemens AG) solicited the City to hire them to replace all of the City’s water meters and a part of the City’s water mains/lines.

That SEIMENS’ representative Tony Ardillo represented to the City’s governing Council that Siemens is the 4th largest company in the world – a reference to the big Siemens AG, not Siemens Industry. However, when the contract was submitted to the City, it was with Siemens Industry and not Siemens AG. That is fraud.

The City states that during the proposal of the project, Siemens Industry and Siemens AG represented to the City that the existing water meters were only 53.58% accurate. That representation was false, and known to be false by Siemens, and was made to induce the City to enter into a $10 Million contract with them to replace all of the City’s existing water meters and part of the City’s existing water mains/lines. That was fraud.

The City recently discovered that neither Siemens Industry, nor Siemens AG, nor their subcontractors are properly licensed by the State of Arkansas Contractors Licensing Board to perform the Municipal & Utility Construction work covered by the contract, or to perform the Specialty contractor work of Meter Installation & Service covered by the contract. It has been unlawful from the beginning for Siemens Industry and Siemens AG to do the work it has done under the contract.

The City claims that Siemens made material misrepresentations to induce the City to engage them on the subject water utility project.

The city considers SEIMENS’ actions to be fraud, in the inducement, and constructive fraud; breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing; defective performance of work done under the contract by Siemens.

The failure of Siemens to provide the Hersey water meters specified by the contract; instead using Sensus water meters without a change order as required by the contract, and the fraudulent attempt to claim that the City’s deceased Mayor Allen Maxwell directed that Sensus meters be used.

SEIMENS’ failure to comply with competitive bidding laws of Arkansas,

The failure of Siemens to provide required performance and payment bonds covering the work under the contract, and later falsely stating that those bonds had been delivered back in 2013.

The failure of Siemens to provide the legally required proper financial assurance that they will pay the City shortages in promised efficiency savings from the new water meters, water mains/lines, and other improvements covered by the contract.

The illegality of the contract from the failure of the contract submitted by Siemens to contain the required terms that they provide the financial assurances of the promised efficiency savings required by Ark. Code.
The failure of Siemens to provide manufacturer warranties on the new water meters installed in the City, and the continuing failure of Siemens to provide any direct written acknowledgment of the manufacturer that the meters actually supplied to the City are covered by warranty;

The failure of Siemens to provide manufacturer recommendations/instructions on the new water meters installed in the City;

The taking of unfair advantage of the City by Siemens in the days and weeks following the untimely death of the City’s Mayor Allen Maxwell on March 10, 2014, including (a) demanding over $4.8 Million in City taxpayer funds before any work or material had been provided to the City by Siemens and obtaining that payment of over $4.8 Million by wire transfer from Union Bank of Monticello on the same day as Mayor Maxwell was being laid to rest at his funeral in Monticello, and waiting until after Mayor Maxwell was dead to switch the water meters from the contract-specified Hersey meters to Sensus meters with which the City has experienced so many problems; and milking the City for another almost $2 Million in payment from a temporary appointed mayor.

By Siemens for preparing and submitting plans to the City for complete replacement of water mains/lines in an area of the City where there was no need for such, contrary to the agreements that water main/line replacement would be done in the “core” of the old part of the City where leaking water mains/lines was an issue; and

The information and belief, by Siemens Industry and Siemens AG causing the meter testing company, Fluid Meter of Austin, Texas, to not share the results of its testing of the City’s existing water meters with the City;

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2015 at 6:43 am and is filed under City. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.