Recycling firm Biffa is suing the Scottish Government for "appropriate compensation" over the botched Deposit Return Scheme (DRS).
Lawyers for the company were in court on Tuesday morning for a procedural hearing.
Roddy Dunlop KC, the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates is representing Biffa.
The firm bought around 200 new trucks and had started recruiting staff when the then circular economy minister Lorna Slater announced a two-and-a-half-year delay to the scheme.
READ MORE: Slater blamed as Biffa take legal action over Deposit Return Scheme
According to the Sunday Mail, the company had relied on personal assurances from the Green MSP as a reason to invest £55million in vehicles and equipment to prepare for the DRS.
When the DRS collapsed, Ms Slater blamed the UK Government after ministers in Whitehall made clear the Scottish Government would only be given the necessary exemption to the UK Internal Market Act if they made substantial changes.
This included removing glass from the scheme, standardised labelling and the same deposit charge across the UK.
Ms Slater said the lack of detail around conditions laid down by Whitehall, including not knowing what that deposit charge would need to be, meant the scheme could not go ahead as planned.
However, Circularity Scotland (CSL), the industry-led body behind the DRS, insisted that the scheme could have complied with the UK Government's demands.
The delay prompted financial backers to abandon the industry-led body forcing it to call in administrators.
READ MORE: Circularity Scotland owes £70m following DRS collapse
Biffa was appointed to collect all the recycled containers across Scotland on a 10-year deal, with the firm expecting to make more than £100million profit.
Reports suggest Biffa may also seek compensation for lost profits.
On Tuesday, during a short virtual hearing, advocate Roddy Dunlop KC told Lord Clark that he was representing Biffa.
Advocate Gerry Moynihan KC told the court that he was acting for the Scottish Ministers.
The pair agreed that a debate should take place later this year into legal issues affecting the case.
The court heard that Mr Moynihan thinks the debate, will take place over two days. Mr Dunlop said he was “hopeful” the debate could take one day.
Another hearing in the matter will take place sometime in the near future.
A spokesperson for Biffa said: “Biffa was selected by Circularity Scotland Limited as the logistics partner for the delivery of the Scottish deposit return scheme and invested significant sums to support its timely and successful implementation.
“This was done in good faith and on the expectation and understanding that the delivery of the scheme had been mandated by the Scottish Government.
“Having carefully reviewed our position with our advisors, we can confirm that we are taking legal action to seek appropriate compensation for the losses Biffa has incurred.”
READ MORE: Circularity Scotland owes £70m following DRS collapse
Scottish Lib Dem climate emergency spokesperson Liam McArthur said: "If this legal bid succeeds, Lorna Slater will have been the most expensive MSP in the history of the Scottish Government.
"Businesses were caught in the middle of a spat between two governments, strung along, incurring costs and left to navigate the uncertainty.
"Deposit return schemes have operated successfully around the world. There is no reason why Scotland should be any different."
Scottish Conservative shadow secretary for net zero, energy and transport Douglas Lumsden MSP said: “It’s no wonder that Biffa are taking this action, given that the SNP-Green government’s incompetence was the only reason the deposit return scheme collapsed.
“It had widespread support in principle, but Lorna Slater made such a mess of it that it became unworkable. Thousands of firms were left out of pocket and, although the UK government offered help to make it work, the SNP and the Greens chose to pull the plug instead.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government cannot comment on ongoing litigation.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel