Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the International Olympic Committee:
“The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in Life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”
With test cricket and Rio 2016 both finishing this month (and congratulations to Team GB for coming second in the medals table), it feels like summer is finally drawing to a close. The school holidays may still be with us (just), but August has been a relatively quiet month on the current awareness front.
In adjudication, we saw the latest instalment in the dispute between Harding v Paice, which David Sears QC and Charles Pimlott discussed. Also, a judgment from earlier in the year was published. Jonathan Cope looked at some of the issues arising from the finding that the adjudicator had jurisdiction to award costs under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. Jonathan also considered the use of summary judgment as an alternative to adjudication. Matt Molloy discussed the seven failed challenges in Ground Developments Ltd v FCC Construccion SA. He also highlighted criticisms of the experts in the Ocensa Pipeline Group Litigation and discussed CEDR’s adjudication rules for PFI.
Despite the court’s summer recess, we still had a number of judgments to tell you about, including the:
- Commercial Court awarding liquidated damages for delay under a shipping contract. Harry Smith discussed the concurrent delay aspects.
- Court of Appeal considering restrictions on the right of an innocent party to a repudiatory breach to affirm a contract.
- TCC refusing to grant an injunction preventing the defendant from enforcing an expert’s decision, which Nigel Jones QC considered.
- TCC refusing to order a party to identify a third-party funder.
- Judgment in a complex asbestos-related insurance litigation involving subrogated claims and the Civil Liability (Contribution) Act 1978.
- TCC considering issues of disclosure relating to expert evidence for the second time this summer.
This month we told you that we’d updated our net contribution clauses and published a note on good faith, Iain Suttie discussed requests for an exclusion of liability for terrorism, Michael Mendelblat and Julie Farley looked at validation orders in insolvency, Jack Macaulay considered the effect of paying an incorrect court fee on applications to amend and Simon Liddiard highlighted some of the issues that may arise on a ground conditions claim. In other news, there is a new construction minister (and one for climate change and industry too), the CJC’s hot-tubbing report was published, the EC published guidance on nearly-zero buildings and the CLC published an updated payment charter.
On the public procurement front, the court looked at the NDA’s tender process, guidance was issued on amending contracts during their term and we published July’s case digest.
…and finally, the Third Parties (Rights against Insurers) Act 2010 and the Insurance Act 2015 both came into force this month.
