I am an international student. I enquiring about the possibility of evoking a lawsuit against a company which has promised to deliver an item but failed to do so. The item is a crucial for my Phd and was purchased early my first year, and confirmed to be delivered 2 months later, however it was only delivered one and a half year later. Furthermore, the item is not complying the the original specification, no manual, and very luke warm supports from the company.

Please advice. Thank you.

If you have the time and the money then give it a try. It's better to put all your energy into your studies and most of the time these legal outcomes are unsatisfactory.

Here is our uninformed opinion and we accept no responsibility for its accuracy or otherwise.

Presumably the university bought the equipment, not you. If you need an extension to finish your PhD and the university was not fulfilling its obligations by providing you with the correct equipment in a timely manner then they should cover the costs of any delay.

If there is a problem with the equipment purchased it is for the university to take action, but the best they could probably hope for is a refund or replacement of the equipment that was delivered.

The problem is I am under the University scholarship, and according to the stated contract, my scholarship is ending this September. Hence, this means that I will have to cover the rest of the cost myself if I do plan to prolong my research, and this can be too expensive for me.

The situation is getting worse each day as the company is using me as a tester for their prototype equipment.

Every time, I found a fault, the equipment will need to be sent back to the supplier and it takes 2 to 3 months to sort it out.

Cut your losses and find something else using an established technique to provide you with different but related data for your thesis. The equipment will continue to plague you with problems and you will not have time to get it sorted before your funding runs out. DO it today and plan the next few months of feasible experiments. You can include the experience with the equipment in your thesis and show that the technique in its current form is unusable. Your supervisor shoudl have some ideas for things that will work.

Your supervisor and you department have a responsibility to ensure that you are able to complete on time. If the work you are doing will not be finished due to circumstances beyond your control they should help you find a research path which will give you enough results for a reasonable thesis.

I wouldn't advice taking the matter to court. you did so little about it's being not delivered for 1.5 years would seem that you did not mitigate your circumstances. there is also a time frame during which you can bring such a suit- which is less than a year from the breach & if you bring it this late, you are only entitled to nominal damages in tort. accept my advice at ur own risk buddy, i accept no liability whatsoever.