Practical Law

In its decision in Bresco v Lonsdale, the Supreme Court confirmed that insolvent companies have the statutory and contractual right to adjudicate construction disputes, even if that claim is affected by insolvency set-off. While Lord Briggs found overarching compatibility between the adjudication and insolvency regimes, that wasn’t to dismiss the difficulties arising between them, particularly … Continue reading FTH v Varis Developments – adjudication and insolvency meet head on again →

From time to time, those seminal cases we all studied during the early parts of our career pop up in practice. We’re all familiar with them: the snail in the bottle in Donoghue v Stevenson; the spurious sounding flu remedy in Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co — the list goes on. Of these key … Continue reading Global Water Associates: applying Hadley v Baxendale →

The idiom “all duck or no dinner“, if you’re not familiar with it, means “all or nothing“. I once worked for a partner that was quite fond of using it, particularly in the context of limitation periods and time bars: if you’re in time, your clients will usually have a smorgasbord of dispute resolution options … Continue reading Sitol v Finegold: NEC3 adjudication time bar applied →

Valuing a contractor’s work on a complex project is rarely an easy task. During the works, parties to a construction contract commonly devote significant resources to ensuring that the work is properly valued. These valuations are often carried out by people with close knowledge of the project, and under the NEC form of contract certified … Continue reading The costly business of ignoring interim assessments and agreed valuations: ICI v Merit Merrell Technology →