Practical Law

There was a full house at the FIDIC International Contract Users’ Conference 2016 which took place in London on 6 and 7 December 2016. The FIDIC conferences always attract a large international audience. However, this year there was an additional draw; a special pre-release version of the second edition of the FIDIC Yellow Book was unveiled. 

The JCT launched its 2016 edition of the Minor Works suite of contracts on 15 June 2016. This will be followed by the other JCT contract suites, which will be rolled out family by family. We understand that the next contracts to be published will be the short form of sub-contract and sub-subcontract (date to be confirmed), … Continue reading What has changed in JCT Minor Works 2016? →

Should Santa pay his Christmas parking fine? Do you know your stockings from your extensions? Our Christmas quiz is back, so go ahead and test your legal knowledge. For answers to all the questions, see our answers document.

Caterpillar Motoren GmbH & Co KG v Mutual Benefits Assurance Company is the latest in a line of cases where the court had to decide whether a security instrument was an “on demand” bond or whether it was in the nature of a true guarantee.

Do you think the NEC is a place in Birmingham, or the TCC is in Australia? Then you need to improve your know-how. Following the success of last year’s teaser, here is a new festive construction wordsearch to test your legal knowledge.

Termination for convenience clauses are a common feature of modern commercial contracts. Terminating a contract in this way has the advantage of avoiding a default-based confrontation. It is also traditionally considered a more expensive way to terminate: parties invoking this type of clause will expect to pay an element of lost profit to the contractor … Continue reading Termination for convenience and the “minimum performance rule” →

Instead of the usual straightforward Christmas quiz, this year we give you our festive construction wordsearch!

The extent to which a party may be obliged to sacrifice its own commercial interests in complying with an “endeavours” obligation in a commercial contract is an issue to which there is no easy answer. A different but related issue was considered in two recent cases: whether a party who is in financial difficulty can … Continue reading Using all reasonable endeavours to commit commercial suicide →

Is your Christmas tree a complex structure? Are there three wise men on your dispute board? Berwin Leighton Paisner’s Christmas quiz is back to test your legal knowledge with a stocking full of construction teasers, one for every day of Christmas.

Letters of intent on construction projects are often condemned as a Bad Thing and to be avoided at all costs. They are particularly prevalent in the construction industry and can create all sorts of problems for both the contractor and the employer. However, this is not to say that using a letter of intent is … Continue reading Are letters of intent necessarily a “bad thing”? →

Do you know your Tolent clause from your Santa Claus? Then why not test your knowledge of construction law? Berwin Leighton Paisner’s Christmas quiz is back and as challenging as ever.

The latest HSE figures show that fatalities on construction sites rose in 2010 (from 41 to 50) for the first time in four years. This was not a revelation: every week the industry press reports a serious accident on a construction site somewhere in the country, but it still shocked me. With all the recent … Continue reading Health and safety in the construction industry: under the spotlight again? →

We are often asked by clients whether an NHBC warranty and a collateral warranty or third party rights (TPRs) provided by a contractor offer the same protection. They don’t and here is why.

Once again, it’s time for the Berwin Leighton Paisner Christmas quiz. Why not test your knowledge of construction law? This year’s quiz is as challenging as ever.

Sustainability has been firmly on the agenda for some time now and yet the transition towards sustainable development has been slow. Sustainability is often seen as being about “green buildings”, with a focus on managing environmental impacts, waste and energy cost savings. However, sustainable development is also about recognising that buildings are part of the … Continue reading The sustainability equation: finding the gold in green buildings →

If you were asked to carry out works to a small part of a large building on the basis that you had to insure the whole building for its full reinstatement value, at a disproportionate cost to the value of the works, would you take the job? This is the issue that is currently facing … Continue reading Tenant’s works and insurance: a problem shared is a problem solved? →

How good is your knowledge of construction law? Fancy rounding-off the year in style? Why not test your mettle with our Christmas quiz, but beware our yuletide-themed trick questions? 

In our previous post we outlined the facts in Kent County Council v Robertson Construction Northern Limited and considered the court’s decision on the allocation of availability and performance deductions in PPP/PFI projects. Another interesting aspect of this case is the comments the court made in relation to interface agreements, which are a common feature … Continue reading PFI interface agreements →

In the recent case of Balfour Beatty v Modus Corovest an employer argued that a contractor needed to issue a withholding notice if it did not intend to pay liquidated and ascertained damages (LADs) claimed by the employer. As far as we are aware this is the first time that such an argument has been raised.

We recently reviewed a bond/guarantee which started with the wording above and continued in the “archaic” form that was widely criticised in the Trafalgar House case in the mid-90s.