Carolyn Lamm News

A $180 million claim involving the Panama Canal's disputed $1.6 billion cost overrun is headed to arbitration court in Miami next week, canal officials said on Monday. The $180 million claim by the consortium working on the massive canal expansion project is the first of several disputed construction costs that could end up in the hands of the Miami arbitrators. The cost overrun temporarily halted work on the massive expansion project in February, and the Panama Canal Authority now says the project is on track to open in January 2016.

Arbitration to decide who will bear the Panama Canal expansion project's $1.6 billion cost overrun, a dispute that temporarily halted work earlier this year, will begin in closed-door sessions in Miami later this month, according to lawyers arguing the matter. On July 21 "both sides will submit their terms and draft procedural orders for how things will work," said Carolyn Lamm, an attorney with White & Case representing the Spanish-led construction consortium. Labor and cost disputes have plagued the effort to expand the 100-year-old canal…