B.C.'s Seaspan Marine Corp. has gone to Federal Court in an effort to keep shipbuilding contract details confidential - even though Halifax-based Irving Shipbuilding dropped its objection to the release of information.
"Seaspan has a short period of time to respond to the decision to release portions of our umbrella agreement with Canada and we filed our application for judicial review to preserve our rights to protect commercially sensitive business information while we considered the issue," the North Vancouver-based company said in a statement Wednesday.
"The matter is currently before the court and we do not intend to comment on it further at this time," Sea-span said.
Umbrella agreements were signed early this year with the federal government and Seaspan - owner of Victoria Shipyards in Esquimalt and Vancouver Shipyards - and Irving Shipbuilding, of Halifax.
The contracts outline the working relationships and administrative agreements between the federal government and the two shipyards in the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy. Last year, Sea-span won the right to negotiate $8 billion worth of construction of non-combat vessels, and Irving took home the $25 billion combat portion.
"Seaspan has been in ongoing and productive discussions with Canada about many elements of the non-combat program over the past several months," the company said.
The federal government decided to release portions of the umbrella agreements after an access-to-information request was submitted.
When Ottawa said parts of the agreements would be made public, Irving responded by filing an application with the Federal Court this month. Irving said the documents include sensitive information which should remain confidential.
However, Irving changed its mind, announcing Tuesday that it would withdraw its bid to overturn the decision to release portions of the documents.
