It’s been an “interesting” six months for the infrastructure industry in the UK. I can’t remember a time when there has been so much policy focus from government on infrastructure.
REUTERS | Eric Thayer
December 15, 2010
Driving growth: building blocks for global infrastructure
REUTERS | Navesh Chitrakar
December 14, 2010
Am I biased?
The SCL recently published a paper by HHJ David Grant, which he had presented earlier this year to a bunch of arbitrator and construction law types in Derby. The paper “Some pitfalls for adjudicators to avoid”, with its self-explanatory title, continued the themes of Coulson J’s talk “The perfect adjudicator’s decision“, which was given in May to a similar bunch of people, and which I wrote about at the time.
Both papers addressed the authors’ views on how, if adjudicators can get simple things right, their decisions are more likely to be enforceable and less susceptible to challenge on grounds of breaches of natural justice. Continue reading
REUTERS | Jumana ElHeloueh
December 13, 2010
Payment of adjudicator’s fees in an insolvency situation
Some may ask why an insolvent party would start (or continue with) an adjudication, but it is often the case that administrators make a commercial call that there is “something in the adjudication”. For them, it may be worthwhile incurring costs if the insolvent party can recover money due to it that will help to help boost the financial pot. After all, if the insolvent party obtains an adjudicator’s decision in its favour, it is also possible that the responding party will not proceed in defending the claim any further.
REUTERS | Lee Jae-Won
December 8, 2010
The tangled web of a multi-party dispute
Construction projects nearly always involve a number of parties. For example, in addition to the employer and the contractor, most projects include the services of consultant engineers and architects, with various sub-contractors engaged along the contractual line. Sometimes there are funders and developers too. Therefore, it is not unusual for disputes to arise between a number of different parties and for one party to find itself “stuck in the middle”, defending claims while, at the same time, seeking to pass on liability to others further down the contractual chain.
This is exactly what happened to the M&E sub-contractor on the fit-out works at Linklaters’ office premises. Continue reading
REUTERS | Sukree Sukplang
December 7, 2010
Who pays for an unsuccessful jurisdictional challenge?
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the timing of when adjudicator’s fees start being incurred. John Redmond commented on my piece, but one thing neither of us mentioned is which party should bear the liability for the adjudicator’s fees incurred specifically on an unsuccessful jurisdictional challenge.
We can look at this question in nice, easy stages. Continue reading
REUTERS | Carlos Barria
December 6, 2010
Don’t forget about section 12 of the Party Wall Act
The existence of section 12 of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 (PWA) is often overlooked and yet its importance should not be. It confers on both a building owner and an adjoining owner the right, in certain circumstances, to require the other to give security for the expenses that may be incurred when works are carried out on their land or to their property.
REUTERS | Brian Snyder
December 1, 2010
Adjudication: when is a decision not a decision?
An adjudicator cannot determine a dispute which is the same, or substantially the same, as one which has been decided in a previous adjudication. When faced with such a claim, an adjudicator should resign. If he issues a decision, the decision will be unenforceable, as he had no jurisdiction to issue it. It is a matter of fact in each case, whether or not the dispute is the same as that from a previous adjudication, so in certain cases, the answer to the question may not be obvious, even if the principle is.
REUTERS | Mike Segar
November 30, 2010
November 2010 digest: duty of care in tort and third party rights
Samuel Taylor Coleridge:
“The one red leaf, the last of its clan, that dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high, on the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.”
The last of the autumn leaves are falling and winter is well and truly here. It seems that it isn’t only the birds that have migrated and wildlife that is heading into hibernation; at the time of writing, we have had only one judgment from the TCC this month. That is not to say that all the courts have been quiet. We have reported on the new exception to the without prejudice rule; estoppel and mistake; incorporating terms into a contract; and the Scottish court’s judgments on reasonable endeavours and reasons in an adjudicator’s decision (and clause 38 of the TeCSA rules). Continue reading
REUTERS | Beawiharta
November 30, 2010
Adjudicating 24/7
Nowadays, it is common to see businesses advertising themselves as being 24/7, meaning they are open all day, every day. But are they truly 24/7 businesses, manned regardless of the time or day, or is it just a euphemism for being there when you need them, within reason? Continue reading
REUTERS | Jumana El Heloueh
November 29, 2010
Construction insolvency: how solid is the house of cards?
Even in the best of times insolvencies are part of the construction industry but, until now, they have not been a major part of this recession. However, do the high profile collapses of Connaught and Rok signal a change and, if they do, what can clients do to protect their interests?