Martin Luther:
“There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.”
No summary of April would be complete without mentioning William and Kate’s wedding. Kate’s dress has a lot to live up to, but we can only speculate on what it may be like, going to press two days before the big event! Hence a picture of Westminster Abbey instead. Continue reading
The Guidance to the Bribery Act 2010 published recently by the Ministry of Justice confirms that small bribes paid to facilitate routine Government actions overseas – facilitation payments – could trigger liability under the Act. This presents those advising clients operating overseas with a dilemma; how do we advise a client that they should go ahead and do business in countries where corruption (or at least facilitation payments) is a way of life?
I have frequently written about adjudicators getting jurisdictional challenges round their ears. Probably too frequently for my liking and here I am again, on the same subject.
This time I’ve gone north of the border. There is nothing wrong with that as the Construction Act 1996 is the same either side of the border and so is the Scheme for Construction Contracts 1998, to all intents and purposes (although this may change later this year…). Continue reading
On 12 April 2011, the SCL held one of its regular meetings. The subject was the forthcoming changes to the Construction Act 1996, under the title “Payment under the new Construction Act: practical dilemmas“. The meeting was chaired by Tony Blackler, with Rupert Choat and John Riches speaking.
The changes to the Construction Act 1996 (in the LDEDC Act 2009) are expected to come into force in October 2011. That is less than six months away. Regular readers of PLC Construction will be familiar with the changes. (For example, see our FAQs, practice notes, checklists, standard clauses, slideshow, and blog posts).
However, we also thought you might be interested in the discussion at the SCL meeting. Continue reading
My last post was all about the “great” section 108A debate (or the “not so great” section 108 debate as one of my fellow PLC bloggers put it!). I’m back again to talk about it, or at least the subject of Tolent clauses, which section 108A was intended to banish from our world of adjudication.
Section 108A is not even in force yet, but it has already been considered in the Scottish case of Profile Projects v Elmwood. Not in the context of the debate over the narrow or wide interpretation that I talked about previously, but rather when considering whether a Tolent clause (that is, a clause requiring the referring party to pay all the costs of the adjudication), is contrary to the provisions of section 108, and in particular a party’s right to “…give notice at any time of his intention to refer a dispute to adjudication” (section 108(2)(a), Construction Act 1996). Continue reading
Last month, in Paton and another, Re Judicial Review, Lord Bannatyne enforced an adjudicator’s decision even though the adjudicator had relied on his own knowledge and experience in arriving at certain conclusions. Now the Scottish court has been asked the same question again (in SGL v RBG) but this time Lord Glennie refused to enforce the adjudicator’s decision.
Why did the court arrive at two different outcomes when, on the face of it, it was being asked the same question, arising out of the same type of allegation? Continue reading
Terminating a contract is not for the faint hearted. If you terminate for the wrong reasons, you can find yourself having to pay a contractor’s lost profits or an employer’s additional completion costs and a contractor’s wrongful suspension can lead to an employer terminating the contract altogether.
But if the mistake is a genuine one, will attempts to suspend or terminate always give the other party the upper hand? Continue reading
A professional consultant often produces important documents relating to a project, many of which are subject to copyright, such as architects’ plans or engineering schematics. This is valuable material, which clients derive obvious benefits from. Accordingly, the parties to a professional appointment usually negotiate specific provisions relating to copyright material; but what happens if the parties fail to agree the terms of an appointment? Continue reading
It was always about cash flow. That’s what Sir Michael Latham said (and Lord Denning before that). Cash-flow was (and remains) the “lifeblood of the industry”.
Somewhere in the last 12 years the cash-flow message seems to have gotten lost in the complexity and detail of many of the construction disputes that are referred to adjudication. As a consequence, the process that we generally refer to as adjudication is a far cry from the process I believe Sir Michael envisaged when statutory adjudication was but a twinkle in his eye. Continue reading
Harold Macmillan:
“The wind of change is blowing through the continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact.”
The political unrest that has been spreading through the middle east dominated the headlines at the start of March but was overtaken by the catastrophic natural disaster in Japan, subsequent concerns over nuclear safety and then, much closer to home, the coalition government’s latest Budget. (For more information on the detail, we published notes on the implications for a number of practice areas, including construction, environment, property and business tax.) Continue reading
