Much has been said on the significant findings in Walter Lilly v Mackay about concurrent delays and global claims. However, the case also has a good deal to tell us about some other issues arising commonly in construction law. In particular, I found the discussion on design liability and notifying claims of interest, not least as they indicate the court’s views in two areas where the employer thought the wording of the contract benefited him.
Alliancing seems to be back in vogue. While it has always been in use in the UK over the last fifteen or so years, it has never really made it to the mainstream in quite the same way that it has in other jurisdictions. For example, in Australia, alliancing accounts for one third of public spending on infrastructure and is used on colossal new build projects in the water, road and rail sectors – including several worth over a billion Aussie dollars. To put it into context on a pound-for-pound basis, that’s like the UK government using alliancing for projects to the value of the whole of the 2012 Olympics infrastructure spend, every year.
I smiled to myself when I read John Redmond’s recent piece in Building magazine, as I know only too well the scenario he describes when talking about parties insisting on having the last word. In John’s example, the parties leave the adjudicator with just 12 hours to reach his decision after the final submission has been made. In my experience, it happens all too often and, sometimes, having 12 hours would be a luxury!
This time last year most construction practitioners were preoccupied with the amendments to the Construction Act 1996 (which had just come into force) and the impact of those amendments on their business. One year on, we decided to look at whether, in fact, 2011 was all a bit like Y2K, with the impact far less than was anticipated and with many of the expected problems failing to materialise. Continue reading
