FUR FLIES OVER FORTE'S LATE PAYMENTS

MANCHESTER contractor Styles & Wood is threatening the hotel giant Forte with legal action over late payments for work completed on the Waldorf Hotel, London, in January 1993.

The sum in dispute involves agreed items within the £12m contract, plus a number of extra items, including compensation for loss and delay in completing the project.

The total amounts to "several millions", according to Styles & Wood chairman Gerard Quiligotti, and also affects a chain of smaller sub-contractors which are still awaiting payment.

Quiligotti says: "Forte isn't disputing the claim. We submitted final invoices in July last year so that they could begin their deliberations, and they have simply not moved since then. It's only when we started, entirely against our own policy, to talk of legal action that they initiated meetings.

"This is an eight-month delay. It's not the way you'd expect a company of that size to operate."

Forte was contacted by Caterer but declined to comment.