In fact, the results were not achieved. That was the basis for Mr. Geisweiller being unwilling to pay the fee. However, the full hours reported on the invoice, the fourteen hours of work were performed in good faith.

And there was another application also not written by me, an accounting application, which for some reason had worked fine under the old system. It was a DOS application, but would not work in the DOS window of Win ’95, the DOS shell of Win ’95. It normally should.

So, it -- it was -- basically, it was --

So, for that reason, I was explicit in telling him that since this was a more substantial amount of work he would be billed for this. After my first day of work I explicitly told him that that day’s work would be five hundred dollars ($500.00) and I told him the -- the next day’s work would also be billed in addition to that. And he nevertheless wanted me to return on the second day to continue the work.

We had had a business relationship at that point for ten years. I wrote a personal, three-page letter explaining the issue pretty thoroughly and he didn’t respond to that letter, and later, when we spoke by phone he told me he had not read it.

As to the -- there’s a -- a defence that he has offered in the statement to the Court. And in that statement he suggests that the fourteen hours is an overstated figure and that it’s inaccurate. When we spoke on the telephone, he never suggested that the figure on the invoice for fourteen hours was inaccurate. That was accepted. And he has no reason to doubt the amount of hours that were worked, since either he or members of his staff were present throughout the work that I did during those two days.

That had been -- it had been worked on and understood. The consultant who had installed the new computer system knew how to do that. And in fact, he had a cable that was necessary to do that which was not on the premises. So, yes, absolutely, to save time I briefly consulted by telephone with the other consultant. The cable wasn’t available. I went out to a -- a store to get a cable to move the data. And that enabled me to -- to move further in getting the work, and to actually get the data and the software transferred to the new computer systems.

The defendant in his statement also complains about my rate being excessive. And I just cannot see that this is --

If that’s the case, then that’s what’s involved. And I don’t know that there’s any -- I take it, Mr. Wittenberg’s first language is not French, so it seems to me that to grant your motion to have the trial heard in French is, maybe, prejudicing him in the same type of manner.

His rates has, was at a certain level, it went up. And there was a particular project on which he worked for us which was helping us network the computer which ended up being a complete failure and it ended up costing a lot of money. At that point, I had made the -- the argument with him that if there were no result, certainly, one could not expect to have the fee paid in full. And --

So, what -- what I -- and -- and as a result of our negotiation the fee was reduced to a substantial amount, bearing in mind that, yes, he had been spending time; but as well, there had been no result achieved.

My job is to determine whether or not there was an agreement between the parties with respect to a fee. In your mind, was there an agreement respecting a fee?

And it appeared at the moment that it was trivial. So, obviously, at that point there was no question the fee or the fee shouldn’t be paid. If Uriel came and spent a few hours and had, in fact, achieved the objectives that we had said I think his fee would have been paid in full.

The problem came across that, in fact, he had no knowledge of the new platform we were working in, which is very surprising for a developer; because what we’re talking about are products which are readily available to anyone. Windows ’95, for example. Windows ’95 was not an environment in which he was familiar.

So, in order to do the simplest task, such as connecting computers together, he had to call my own -- my own consultant. And calling the consultant meant waiting for one to get on the Internet, somebody giving the answer. It was a tremendous amount of time wasted in terms of efficiency and a tremendous amount of time spent downstairs having coffee and beverages, since the place of work is a restaurant.

So, Uriel using the resources that were offered to him by my outside consultant still managed to -- an attempt at doing something, but never succeeded. The -- the bottom line --

So, shortly after that and ever since, the particular program that Uriel designed called “Risk” has been running under a DOS sub-shell of Windows ’95 and that has been the case for two years.

There are many processes and which of these, certainly, I would expect the creator of the software to be aware of all these steps and, in particular, to know the new Window ’95 environment well. And, I mean, I’d like to point out that, in your own admission, you didn’t know Windows ’95. You were a Windows 3, which was an outdated version type of program.

As a result, we had to call all of these consultants. So, had you made it clear as you’re trying to attempt to make it now, that, in fact your services were not needed when you came, I would not have hired you. I would have hired somebody else.

So, I call you. If you had -- if you had had the reservation that you express today, my point is, then why weren’t they voiced and -- and why did we end up with you trying to perform a task for which you were not equipped to do?

At least, that’s what I understand his evidence is. In effect, what he’s saying is, your statement that results could not be guaranteed were saying that you, personally, could not guarantee results. Somebody else --

But, obviously, if the results had been achieved in a satisfactory manner I had no problem with the fees. I don’t think this has been an issue in the past ten years. But I had indicated to you in previous experiences, in previous dealings with you, that objectives were really the means of determining the value of one’s work. And if there are no -- there is no legacy of one’s work, then how on earth could it be worth twelve hundred dollars?

The question is that you come a second day --

The only discussion that arose about the payment of the invoice was when that you looked at it and considered it was past the due date, and, in fact, it had been past the due date, because I had never received it. So, there was very little discussion that I could have had without an invoice to argue. Your invoice is -- is extremely vague. I mean, you state fourteen hours. That’s all that you say. It’s not --

That’s not an issue, so I was expecting a phone call. The phone call that I got was to demand payment of an invoice that I still don’t had. And I said that sounds pretty unreasonable. I think we should come to a better -- better agreement. At that point I think and in all subsequent phones -- phone conversation that we have had, your attitude was: I’m owed this and that’s how much you owe me. Here was no budging.

I don’t recall that there has ever been a bill that was paid without some form of negotiations prior to issuing the bill to make sure that both parties felt that what would be presented would be fair to both.