After a lull since Christmas, the TCC has sprung into action again and enforced more adjudicators’ decisions. Of wider interest (both within and oustide the construction and engineering sector), the TCC also confirmed that a mediator could be called as a witness in a claim that a settlement agreement was signed under economic duress (albeit, she will be called with the parties’ consent). Continue reading
The Outer House of the Court of Session recently considered the allocation of availability/performance deductions in PPP/PFI projects and concluded that these deductions related only to failures in the provision of operational services, not failures in design or construction.
Or put another way, do contracts really mean what they say?
If you are as old as me, you may remember the Fun Boy Three singing something like that. If you can remember the Fun Boy Three, you will also remember those days in law school when you were told time and time again that the “contract is king”. Well, like so many things in life, things seem to have moved on and are no longer the way they were, or at least, the way they seemed. Continue reading
I should have realised that as soon as I suggested that the TCC appeared to have gone quiet, we’d get an adjudication enforcement decision. Good old Sir Peter! Continue reading
The JCT announced the headline changes in Revision 2 2009 to its Standard Building Contract and the Design and Build Contract on 18 May 2009. It also confirmed that it would publish revised guides to the two contracts, showing which clauses have changed from the Revision 1 June 2007 versions.
As we keep our maintained resources up to date with law and practice, we set about making sure the references to these contracts all remained correct. Nearly all of them did. However, we have noticed some small changes throughout the contracts. The question is, are they significant? Continue reading
In the last fortnight, two suites of standard forms of contract have been updated. Last week, the Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) published an updated suite of professional appointments, the ACE Agreements 2009, and, on Monday, the Joint Contracts Tribunal (JCT) began publishing its 2009 revisions, a process that will last into August.
Anyone who is involved in construction and engineering projects has to decide whether to buy the updated forms of contract. In many cases there is no real choice, the updated forms must be purchased because the old ones will no longer be available and also because nobody in our industry wants to appear out of touch with the latest developments. This gives rise to some important questions: Continue reading
Is it just me, or is anyone else wondering what has happened to all those enforcement proceedings in the TCC, which we got so used to reading about? You may recall that there was a flurry of activity at the end of last year and at the start of this year, but in recent weeks, the TCC has been remarkably quiet. Continue reading
Disputes are increasing; cash is short. Where does that leave you and your project?
We live in troubled times. The commercial property and construction industries have been particularly affected. In the construction industry, two trends are noticeable:
Responding parties often argue that they have been the victim of an ambush by the referring party, but what is an ambush and why does it matter?
This post continues from my thoughts last week. (For more general legal information on pandemic influenza, click here.)
Contracts and clauses
When I first started in the law, force majeure clauses were not discussed at any length in most contract negotiations. However, in recent years (and especially after the foot and mouth crisis of 2001) people have started looking at them in much more detail. Continue reading
