Biography

Matt Mortazavi has 35 years of hands-on experience in general contracting, construction, and project management.  He has extensive experience in residential (low and high-rise), infrastructures such as railway transit, underground services, roads, highways, and ICI development projects as well as in the areas of health, and civil defense projects. To date, scopes of projects have ranged from small to large-scale projects with construction budgets ranging from $50,000 to $300.0 million. Mortazavi’s experience extends further into and in particularly in construction risk management, forensic construction/engineering investigation, procurement and claim analysis, negotiation, delay claim preparation and rebuttal, contract preparation and construction dispute resolutions by way of mediation, referee, construction adjudication (English and Canadian Construction Adjudication Act) and arbitration.

He is a licensed professional civil engineer in the British Colombia, Alberta, and Ontario. His practice and company, Mortazavi Construction Consulting Inc. are registered in both provinces and with their engineering regulatory bodies to practice engineering.  The firm is holder of Permit to Practice with APEGA as well as holder of Certificate of Authorization with PEO.

Matt is a Certified Adjudicator and Fellow by invitation of Asian Institute of Alternative Dispute Resolution (FAIADR) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is member of the Dispute Resolution Board (DRB) Foundation in United States of America. Matt is a Fellow and an Accredited Construction Adjudicator at the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London, UK and its Canada Branch and he is on the committee of Construction Adjudication Program. He received his Construction Adjudication training in London and was awarded a post graduate diploma. In April 2019, he was elected as member of the board of directors at CIArb – Canada Branch. Additionally, he is a Fellow of the Institute of Construction Claims Practitioner (FICCP) and he is on the Registered Panel of Claims Practitioner of the Institute. Matt is on the approved list of Expert Mediators with the Government of Canada and he is a Chartered Arbitrator with the ADR Institute of Canada. Matt is a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Arbitrators in the City of London, England.

Matt has successfully completed at least 80 construction mediation on contract change orders. These mediations dealt with disputes related to contract interpretation of infrastructure, architectural, structural, electrical, and mechanical matters for which an evaluation and assessment of disputed change orders were implemented. Matt has conducted at least 35 binding arbitrations, construction adjudication and referees in the last three (3) years. The disputes were of contract interpretation nature related to residential (low and high-rise), underground infrastructures, architectural, electrical, mechanical, and structural. He has provided numerous “Expert Opinion” reports and letters on construction and contract interpretation matters related to residential, ICI and heavy construction projects.

As construction claim consultant and practitioner, Matt has prepared delay claims for general contractors as well as for trade contractors. These claims are well in the millions of dollars. Furthermore, Matt has been engaged on several occasions as an expert to provide expert reports on technical construction/engineering related matter as well as construction contract interpretation.

On June 26, 2023, Matt was invited as an expert panelist to speak at the United Nations in Geneva at the AI – Global Forum on the topic of Artificial Intelligence and the UN – SDGs goals.

Matt has given seminars on construction law and contracts to several government organizations such as the County of Simcoe, City of Hamilton, Limestone District School Boards, and many more. In addition to his business practice and academic involvement, Matt is a member of the Board of Directors at the Toronto French School – Canada’s International School and Chairperson of the Sustainability and Property committee of the school. His function is to advice, recommend and guide the senior school management on construction related projects and more specifically on the current $64.0 million expansion at the Mississauga and Toronto campuses.

Matt Mortazavi is bilingual in English and French. He has sufficient knowledge of spoken and written Spanish to conduct day to day conversation at moderate level.