Cast your mind back to 1996. I’m not thinking about football and England hosting the European Championship, but rather when what became the Construction Act 1996 was being debated in Parliament. One of the issues which troubled the House of Lords was the extent to which an adjudicator’s decision would be binding; should it be forever (with limited rights to appeal, like in arbitration), just until practical completion or something in the middle? Continue reading
“A volcano is just a mountain with hiccups.”
We are unsure where this quote originates, but it was probably of little comfort to the thousands of travellers affected by April’s biggest story, the Icelandic volcanic eruption, which dominated the news and even managed to push the general election off the front pages for a few days. Continue reading
A construction or engineering contract, in particular a sub-contract, often allows the contractor to order the sub-contractor to stop work. This often appears as a contractual right to order the sub-contractor to suspend work immediately (or to suspend after a short notice period) following which, if work does not resume within six or twelve months, the sub-contract may also terminate.
While one contract may be different from the next, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has shone a spotlight on one non-construction law aspect of these circumstances, namely what happens if an instruction to stop or suspend work forces the sub-contractor to make its employees redundant. Continue reading
Unless you have been trapped overseas by the volcanic eruption in Iceland for the last week or so, you will have seen the furore that Edwards-Stuart J’s judgment in Yuanda v WW Gear has caused and the column inches that have been written about it.
Last week I discussed the possibility of an end to Tolent clauses, but another aspect of that judgment is also worthy of a mention; the position of multi-party disputes post-Yuanda. Continue reading
Provisional sums are a mystery to many construction and engineering lawyers, often thought of as the domain of quantity surveyors, rather than legal advisers. In fact, a building contract’s treatment of provisional sums can have a profound impact on the overall cost and speed of a project. Continue reading
It doesn’t seem that many weeks since I was writing about Edwards-Stuart J’s decisions in the TCC on adjudication enforcement. Just last week, he gave a landmark decision in Yuanda v WW Gear. This case has received a lot of coverage and, having read the judgment, I can see why. Continue reading
As the new broom in the TCC, Edwards-Stuart J has carried out some important spring cleaning and, in Yuanda v WW Gear, he has delivered possibly the most significant decision in construction law so far this year.
Is the cost of litigating large and complicated construction disputes getting out of hand? One only needs to look at the litigation that the redevelopment of Wembley stadium has generated for some recent, extreme examples. Continue reading
A dispute was referred to me recently that involved an alleged repudiatory breach of contract and an alleged wrongful suspension of work. I had to decide whether these matters, which the contractor argued were central to the dispute (and the parties’ resultant entitlements), were within the scope of what had been referred to adjudication and therefore fell within my jurisdiction. Continue reading
Be wary. It is not easy to escape from an unprofitable contract (or “bad bargain”).
Unprofitable contracts
The construction industry may now be leaving its own long recession behind (or it may not). Whatever your particular experiences of the recession, it may have left you with contracts that are unprofitable (or, at least, less profitable) to perform.
Outside of the sphere of construction and engineering, one of the reasons for the sale of The Independent newspaper for just £1 was that its long-term print contract cost the paper’s owners more than the newspaper was able to generate in returns. Continue reading
