Munilla Construction Management, the Miami-based contractor in the back of the pedestrian bridge that collapsed at Florida International University closing 12 months, stated it filed for financial ruin safety on Friday, office work taking pictures of a steep reversal in fortunes for an organization that had been a top builder of nearby government initiatives.

In a press release issued Friday night time, MCM said it would ask a federal judge for safety under Chapter eleven of the financial disaster laws, which allows groups to negotiate with lenders while reorganizing with hopes of resuming normal enterprise operations. The method has to take approximately four months, an MCM spokesman said.

UPDATE: Bankruptcy filings show contractor MCM struggling to live to tell the tale after FIU bridge fall apart

The circle of relatives-owned business enterprises received the bid from FIU to build a pedestrian bridge over Southwest Eighth Street. The partially finished structure collapsed on March 15, killing six human beings.

In the discharge, MCM suggested it plans to negotiate all claims in opposition to the company — such as those stemming from the bridge crumble — at some point in the financial disaster court cases.

“Chapter 11 offers the opportunity for all the claims asserted in opposition to the Company, consisting of those arising from the failure of the University City Prosperity Project, to be addressed comprehensively in a single forum,” the agency stated.

MCM is being sued by using survivors of the fall apart and by households of sufferers. MCM said the financial ruin has not to be seen “as an attempt to avoid any responsibility” for the disintegration.

Court papers have not been had Friday night from MCM’s financial disaster case, and the release contained no economic statistics.

Federal investigators have pointed to design flaws that led to cracking on the 174-foot bridge, but the research has now not but assigned blame. MCM supervised the production of the structure under the national settlement with FIU. The company’s accomplice in the task, FIGG Bridge Group, designed the structure.

Both corporations are dealing with civil proceedings from survivors and families of sufferers from the disintegration.

MCM, with headquarters in South Miami, has thrived on nearby authorities’ contracts. Since 2014, it has won greater than $ sixty-nine million well worth of construction work with Miami-Dade County. The reliable donor to nearby races has gained contracts for initiatives at PortMiami and Miami International Airport. A county database indicates MCM ultimately acquired a test from the county in May.

MCM has struggled since the fall apart. It bid on a county library undertaking in Hialeah Gardens closing in September but withdrew it months later. In 2017, Miami-Dade’s mayor and commissioners were supporting MCM’s try to win an $800 million nation agreement to build Miami’s new “signature bridge” over I-395. MCM and FIGG, its companion in that task too, abandoned the effort after the FIU crumble.

MCM companion Pedro Munilla sat two rows lower back within the reserving phase of Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s State of the County address on Jan. 31. Gimenez’s wife, Lourdes, is related to the Munilla circle of relatives, and one of the mayor’s sons has lobbied for MCM.

Asked after the deal to explain the monetary nation of MCM, Munilla spoke back: “We’re devastated. … We haven’t been capable of a bid for nine months.”

The employer became based via the sons of a pinnacle bridge builder in pre-Castro Cuba. The Munilla brothers got here to the US under the Pedro Pan software for unaccompanied kids. They landed in an Ohio orphanage in a journey that started days before the Bay of Pigs invasion, in step with the enterprise’s website.

Fernando Munilla sooner or later joined his children inside the United States, setting up a production company in Miami. That business enterprise brought about the founding of MCM inside the Nineteen Eighties, and the company succeeded in major government contracts in Miami and beyond.

In 2016, MCM won a $63 million Defense Department settlement to construct a school on the U.S. Military base in Guantánamo, Cuba.

Friday’s release stated MCM continues to operate and says it has secured approximately $18 million in coins to finish current construction contracts.

“MCM’s doors are open, and the corporation continues to conduct business because it navigates this technique,” President Jorge Munilla stated within the launch. “As usual, our management crew and employees stay focused on doing first-rate work for our valued clients. The reorganization can have minimal effect on operations.”