The fire safety engineering firm found by a tribunal to be most to blame for a 2014 flammable cladding blaze in Docklands also signed off on Neo200, the Spencer Street apartment tower that caught alight in February.

Last month the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found that safety engineering company Thomas Nicolas, whose sole director is Con Nicolas, was responsible for the largest portion of the almost $6 million it will cost to reclad the Lacrosse apartment tower on Latrobe Street.

The Neo200 blaze on Spencer Street on February 4. Credit:Simone Fox Koob

That building started to burn about midnight on November 24, 2014, when it caught alight due to flammable cladding – the same type as in London’s deadly Grenfell tower fire.

In the Lacrosse fire, French backpacker Jean-Francois Gubitta left a cigarette burning on the balcony of the two-bedroom apartment he shared with five other people.