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Lafarge seizes subbie's artic after he ends deal
Page 7
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A MANCHESTER-BASED subcontractor accuses building materials company Lafarge of behaving in "a childish and spiteful manner" by repossessing his artic after he handed in his notice.
Colin Howard, who runs J&J Bulk I laulage, says after he terminated his agreement with the Readymix arm of the company the French firm withheld payment from October and cancelled his contract with its aggregates arm.
Howard says his Readymix agreement had not been making him any money for some time and he had only remained profitable through the aggregates work Lafarge provided. He claims that after he wrote to the company givingot/days' notice on the Readymix agreement he was told it had never received the letter and would have rejected it anyway.
He was also told cancelling one Lafarge agreement meant cancelling all of them. The keys for an artic he was leasing from the company were taken from him, though he only had five payments left.
Howard also says the company is withholding 12 days' pay until it is able to sell another vehicle he was using on the mixer contract.
A Lafarge spokesman would not tell CM what the firm expects subcontractors to do when they attempt to terminate a contract, saying Howard's firm is in dispute with it over a "performance issue".
This type of dispute is rare but it is being handled fairly and in line with our standard policy and procedures," he adds."It is an ongoing dispute so we're unable to add anything further, but we hope to be able to draw the matter to a close in due course."