KBR Gets Complete Defense Win in Houston Trial Over $18B Mexican Refinery Job

It took a jury in Harris County about seven hours of deliberations over Thursday and Friday to determine Houston-based Kellogg Brown & Root owed nothing to a Mexican construction company that had been seeking more than $100 million in damages over losing a bid to build a refinery in southern Mexico. 

The Mexican company, Constructora Hostotipaquillo, known informally as “Hosto,” told jurors in the trial that began April 25 that it lost more than $186 million in potential revenue because KBR breached its fiduciary duty to Hosto in several key ways, causing the companies not to be awarded a lucrative contract for one phase of construction of a vast government-owned refinery in Dos Bocas, Tabasco. The two companies joined forces to bid on work related to the refinery project. The Dos Bocas refinery was originally projected to cost more than $8 billion; due to overruns and construction delays, the final cost was more than $18 billion.