Nalcor contractor pay case in holding pattern to assess impact of separate ruling

While a public inquiry held its third day of hearings in Labrador to ramp up the search for answers on Muskrat Falls, three top managers with the project had a court date in St. John's to stop the release of information about how much they've been paid to work there.

But that court case is now in a holding pattern, because of a recent decision in a separate matter that could have an impact on the privacy arguments being made.

Paul Harrington, Lance Clarke and Tanya Power have taken their boss, Nalcor CEO Stan Marshall, to court.

• 3 Muskrat Falls contractors file court action to block release of pay info

They want a judge to block Marshall's decision to release details of their compensation for work on the publicly-funded megaproject.

That used to be off-limits, under strict commercial-sensitivity provisions of the act governing Nalcor.

But earlier this year, the provincial government changed the law, to make that type of information public.

• Lifting the veil: Government to remove secrecy over contractor pay at Muskrat Falls
• Law protecting Nalcor contractor salary secrets will change, Dwight Ball says

So CBC News filed an access-to-information request to get pay details for top contractors at Muskrat Falls.

Marshall agreed to release it. Six contractors did not object. Two others complained to the privacy commissioner.

But three contractors — Harrington, Clarke and Power — went directly to Supreme Court.

In court documents filed in July, they said releasing the pay info would be an "unreasonable invasion" of personal privacy and would cause them "undue financial harm."

Ruling in similar case

Since then, the Court of Appeal issued a ruling in a similar case, rejecting privacy arguments like those made by the Nalcor contractors and concluding that the pay details of people on the public payroll are public information.

• Names and salaries of N.L. public servants are public info, Court of Appeal rules

At a brief Supreme Court appearance on Wednesday, the lawyer for the three Nalcor contractors asked to have the matter set over until December.

That would allow time to assess the impact of the potentially precedent-setting decision, and to see if it will be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The judge agreed.

Consulting company info in public domain

But the three Nalcor contractors don't just want their pay shielded from the public.

They also want the names of their consulting companies kept secret.

However, in at least one of the three cases, there is information already in the public domain that appears to identify the company in question.

Paul Harrington, the Lower Churchill director for power generation, signed his first contract in April 2007.

A week before that contract was signed, a company called Erimus Consulting Limited Incorporated, with Harrington as a founding director.

There is currently a listing on the business networking website LinkedIn that identifies Harrington as connected to Erimus Consulting and the role of project director on the Lower Churchill.

Erimus also has a website touting work on the project, and a "proven track record of providing project management and project director level  expertise."

HST numbers on partially-redacted invoices related to Harrington's Muskrat Falls work match with the company name "Erimus Consulting" in a federal tax database. Those invoices were obtained by CBC News, in response to a prior access-to-information request.

And the postal code for company invoices sent to Nalcor for Harrington's work is the same as the postal code for the address used by Erimus in public corporate filings.

Harrington did not comment on his role in Erimus, after CBC News approached his lawyer about the name of the company Wednesday.