RON Mitchell, managing director of Edinburgh-based engineering group ERDC, last night spoke of his relief at winning a large settlement from Brunel University after a three-year legal battle.

Lord Humphrey Lloyd found in favour of the Scottish contractor two weeks ago, forcing Brunel to pay it GBP429,129, comprising GBP366,110 plus VAT of GBP63,019. ERDC also claims Brunel has to pick up the tab for all its legal costs, which currently stand at GBP1.2m.

Add to this its own legal costs, and Brunel could be out of pocket to the tune of around GBP2.5m.

Mitchell said: "To be honest, I think they set out to bust me."

However, a spokesman for Brunel last night claimed the university "won on all principal points of law", and noted that it was considering an appeal.

Mitchell characterised the three-year struggle as a Davidand-Goliath battle, from which the giant academic institution emerged with a black eye.

He told The Herald that although he is not much of a drinker, he headed straight for the pub after the judge gave his judgment.

"When I came out of court I squashed four pints in an hour, and I've never done that before. The fact he's awarded us so much cash is vindication of the stance we took."

The legal claim took its toll on the company over the last three years, taking up many hours of management time, plus the considerable costs incurred.

Alan McCreath, chairman of ERDC, said: "There's no question that the last three years have had a significant impact on our business."

The trouble began when ERDC won a GBP1.2m project to build a running track for Brunel, which is based in Uxbridge, Middlesex. ERDC won the competitive bid, beating a company called Thorntons, which was based in Preston, Lancashire, by just GBP1.75.

Mitchell quipped: "I wish they had won it now."

The construction boss explained the crux of the wrangle stemmed from the fact that the university could not award a full contract to ERDC because it did not have planning consent.

Despite the lack of planning consent, Mitchell said work on the weather-susceptible project started in May 2001.

However, it did not take long for problems to arise. After only two days on site, Mitchell claimed the university's geotechnical report was "inaccurate" because the topsoil was up to one metre deep over the whole track instead of the 150mm specified by the report.

Mitchell joked: "They (Brunel) had a full committee who designed the elephant as a camel."

He said this initial mix-up led to ERDC being instructed by the client to do "hundreds of thousands of pounds'worth" of additional work to prepare the site. This pushed back the timetable, and, almost inevitably, bad weather eventually struck.

"These sort of things were not our risk, " said Mitchell, but noted it became a problem because there was no contract to define which party should bear that risk. He added: "We are not fly-by-night, we are an honest, professional company."

ERDC completed the track, but did not have time before the September deadline to finish any of the access routes or landscaping surrounding the track.

"We weren't working under a contract at this time. We got the work done, but they (Brunel) didn't like the bill, " claimed Mitchell. He said bitter arguments now characterised the relationship between ERDC and Brunel, which eventually led to the contractorwalking off site in March 2002.

"It is the first time in 30 years of business that ERDC had to walk off site, " Mitchell added.

Asked how he now feels about Brunel, Mitchell said: "A bit p***ed off, it didn't need to go there . . . all our legal advice was that Brunel wouldn't want to go to court."

The construction boss said he was now looking forward to getting back to "business as usual", and noted the firm has been remarkably stable, despite having to pay such large legal costs to pursue the claim.

Indeed, the company's latest accounts show the company returning to the black, with pretax profits of GBP156,837 last year, up from a loss of GBP532,481 previously.