I was recently fortunate enough to be asked to speak at a dispute resolution conference in Dubai, which was jointly organised by Dubai Land Department and RICS. On one of the days, I took part in an expert witness workshop. It was fascinating to talk to people who act as experts in the local courts: Dubai has a civil law system so the expert is appointed by, and directly assists, the court.
A subscriber recently asked whether a contractor under a JCT contract can claim an extension of time after the contract administrator has issued a certificate of practical completion.
Is sub-contracting in Stevenage more dangerous than sailing the North Atlantic? And what have sub-contracting in Stevenage in 2007 and sailing in the North Atlantic in 1795 got in common with an adjudicator’s decision in 2012?
Regrettably, for the adventurers among you, this blog doesn’t attempt some kind of statistical comparison of the physical risks of the sub-contract and the transatlantic crossing. Perhaps more prosaically, it draws out some legal lessons from the hazards of contracting to complete both these activities. The dangers aren’t limited to sailors and contractors though: the Court of Appeal decision in PC Harrington v Systech ensures the perils apply to the adjudicator caught in the same conundrum. Continue reading
Do we need to think a little more carefully about what the public procurement rules cost to implement? Few people could disagree with the government’s stated procurement policy to:
“… buy the goods, works and services that it needs under a fair and open procurement process, guarding against corruption and seeking to secure value for public funds with due regard to propriety and regularity.”
However, for some time there have been mutterings about whether the rules themselves have contributed to the increased cost of public procurement. Commentators have noted that the cost of publically funded projects has risen well above inflation. And then there are the other costs. Continue reading
Whether the Construction Act 1996 applied to letters of intent was an issue that troubled practitioners and the courts for a number of years. From the various cases that considered this issue, the answer seemed to be that each case would turn on its own facts (that classic lawyerly phrase!), but the Act would apply if the letter of intent was a “complete agreement”. In other words, if the letter of intent satisfied the requirements of section 107, the parties were “parties to a construction contract“.
So, what happens to letters of intent now that section 107 has been repealed? Continue reading
The recent cases of Denness v East Hampshire District Council and Robbins v London Borough of Bexley have shed further light where property damage is alleged to have been caused by the roots of adjacent trees.
Both property and tree owners will be affected by these decisions as the long-held view that liability is always established merely by the proximity of trees to buildings built on shrinkable soils may well be confined to history. Continue reading
John Clare, Remembrances:
“Summer’s pleasures they are gone like to visions everyone. And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on. I tried to call them back but unbidden they are gone.”
In the 1970’s, the Two Ronnies made famous a sketch about four candles, or was it fork handles? During October, PLC Construction reached the milestone of fork handles, by which we mean our fourth birthday. We didn’t pop any champagne corks in the office, nor do we expect many were being popped to celebrate a year of the Construction Act 1996 amendments. Despite last year’s fanfare, the amendments have met with a muted reaction and there has been no reported judicial guidance on the new payment or adjudication provisions. Continue reading
Sadly, there is some litigation that is very hard to settle. Some claimants are not very realistic about what their claim is worth or about whether they will recover their legal costs. Equally, some claimants are badly advised by either their lawyers or their experts about their prospects of success and how much they might recover.
If you are a defendant facing these sorts of claimants, how should you try to deal with it? The courts much prefer it when parties try to settle their disputes. While it is difficult to make offers to settle when the parties are a long way apart on the value of the claim, the courts do expect the parties to try nonetheless.
Just the other day, I was reading Tony Bingham’s piece in Building about the return of Lord Dyson to the Court of Appeal as the Master of the Rolls. Tony ended his piece as follows:
“I am excited by the ‘re-appearance’ of this judge. What does he say now about this 14-year old dispute management scheme? Have we strayed off-piste?”
A couple of days later, Lord Dyson’s judgment in PC Harrington v Systech was published. In light of the conclusions he reached about adjudicators’ fees, I wonder what Tony (and a lot of other people) are thinking now. Continue reading
Expert evidence is pivotal in most construction and engineering disputes. This means that, as lawyers, we need to be on top of our game when it comes to expert evidence.
Most of us probably think that we are very good at managing the expert-lawyer relationship. However, the fact that expert evidence keeps coming in for robust comment in the TCC should be a lesson to us all. Continue reading