Monthly Archives: December 2011

REUTERS | Bobby Yip
December 23, 2011

December 2011 digest: new content and a Christmas quiz

William Shakespeare, Sonnets:

“How like a winter hath my absence been,
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness everywhere!”

During December, we continued where we left off at the end of November, with more new and updated content. We published seven more standard documents on boundary walls and excavations under the Party Wall Act 1996 and new practice notes on the ACE Agreements and the National Infrastructure Plan 2011 (NIP 2011). There was a toolkit on bribery and corruption and one on health and safety. We also revised our notes on the CIC Consultants’ Contract and the FIDIC Sub-contract 2011. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Lisi Niesner
December 20, 2011

Party to construction contract can’t be adjudicator nominating body too!

There are 32 London boroughs (plus the City of London), but a quick review of the reported cases over the last five years shows that only one has ended up in the TCC trying to resist the enforcement of an adjudicator’s decision: Camden, and not just once.

Camden’s previous trips to the TCC have not ended happily for it. William Verry Ltd (RIP) successfully enforced an adjudicator’s decision against Camden in 2006 and Makers (UK) Ltd successfully enforced adjudicators’ decisions against it in 2008 and 2009.

No doubt Camden thought that it would fare better in its most recent visit with Sprunt Ltd. Alas, it was not to be. Once again it was ordered to pay the sum awarded by the adjudicator. Let me explain why. Continue reading →

REUTERS | Brian Snyder
December 14, 2011

BIM: ownership rights

Already frequently used in the USA and now compulsory on public projects in Denmark and Finland, Building Information Modelling (BIM) looks set to explode upon the UK domestic construction industry over the next few years. This development will be spearheaded by some major infrastructure projects and the government’s initiative to make it compulsory on public projects by 2016 (BIM Working Party Strategy Paper 2011).

This is the first in a series of articles, which deal with some of the legal issues that BIM presents.

Continue reading →

REUTERS | Jumana El Heloueh
December 13, 2011

Is it guaranteed?

Does a guarantee provide the reassurance its name implies? When a transaction goes wrong, the injured party may have the benefit of a bank guarantee. It could be excused for thinking that its losses will be covered, to the extent of that guarantee. However, in these tough economic times, banks and financial institutions are carefully scrutinising the terms of their guarantees and may seek to deploy a variety of arguments for refusing to be bound by them.

Continue reading →

REUTERS | Fabrizio Bensch
December 13, 2011

Claiming interest in adjudication after PPL v Corinthian

Earlier this year I looked at claiming interest in adjudication proceedings under the Late Payment of Commercial (Interest) Act 1998, in particular the exercise of my discretion under section 5. Recently the TCC was asked (in Partner Projects v Corinthian Nominees) a similar question about whether an adjudicator had jurisdiction to award interest under the LPA.

Continue reading →

REUTERS | Lee Jae-Won
December 12, 2011

Ask the team: what’s the difference between a letter of intent and a PCSA?

An employer, such as a property developer, may need to involve a contractor in a project before it is ready to sign a building contract. This is sometimes generically known as early contractor involvement (ECI), and can take place on a formal or informal basis. Two common types of agreement between an employer and a contractor in these circumstances are a letter of intent and a pre-construction services agreement (PCSA). (Occasionally, a PCSA is known by the even shorter acronym: PCA, for pre-construction agreement.)

Continue reading →

REUTERS |
December 12, 2011

E-mail arrangements over Christmas and the new year

Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody:

“So here it is merry Christmas, everybody’s having fun.
Look to the future now, It’s only just begun.”

Following business as usual this week, PLC Construction will send its last e-mail of 2011 next week, to arrive in your inbox on Thursday 22 December 2011. We are then taking a break until the new year.

The first e-mail of 2011 will be sent to arrive in your inbox on Thursday 5 January 2012. This e-mail will include reports of all developments since 22 December 2011.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year.

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