Spanish contractor Obrascón Huarte Lain (OHL) is planning legal action against Qatar Foundation, a leading education and cultural organisation in the country, related to a major project, reports said.

A joint venture between OHL and US firm Contrack International lost its role on the unfinished $2.3 billion Sidra Medical and Research Centre project last week, said a report in Global Construction Review.

The joint venture won the work in 2008, and the project was scheduled for completion by 2011.

The Qatar Foundation has recruited a new joint venture to complete the medical centre, this one between Qatari contractor Midmac and Jordan’s CCC.

Jose Maria del Cuvillo Peman, OHL’s vice-secretary of the board of directors, was quoted by the report as saying in a letter to the London Stock Exchange that it was fired from the project owing to the “pace of the works and delivery deadlines”.

OHL said: “According to the current estimations, the degree of completion in the execution of the contract is around 95 per cent, with the final delivery to the client being scheduled in the first quarter of 2015.

“OHL considers that the reasons given by the client lack any legitimate grounds, and consequently intends to activate through the consortium the mechanisms set out in the contract to claim before the International Chamber of Commerce based in London, through arbitration, the effective protection of its interests.”

The Qatar Foundation has not given any official statement regarding the dispute.