“On the first day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree…”
PLC Construction will send its last e-mail of 2009 next week, to arrive in your inbox on Thursday 24 December 2009. We are then taking a break until the new year.
The first e-mail of 2010 will be sent to arrive in your inbox on Thursday 7 January 2010. This e-mail will include reports of all developments since 24 December 2009.
Merry Christmas and a happy new year.
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? Continue reading
It’s not always easy being an adjudicator. It sometimes feels like you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Ask Mr Shawyer, the poor chap who came in for rather a lot of harsh words from Couslon J last week (in Enterprise v McFadden). In Coulson J’s eyes, he was damned because he didn’t do something. He didn’t address Enterprise’s jurisdictional challenge; he “refused to grapple at all with the jurisdiction issues being raised”. Continue reading
“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”
(Robert Byrne)
It’s nearly Christmas, so why not take another look at a fine old contractual chestnut: fitness for purpose. (This blog looked a different aspect of this issue before).
Fitness for purpose can get construction lawyers and their clients quite worked up, but why exactly? What is the real effect of including a fitness for purpose obligation? Will it be implied anyway? How does this affect insurance? Continue reading
I read an interesting article in the Law Society Gazette by Masood Ahmed about enforcing judgments.
The recent Adjudication Society event focused on nominating adjudicators. It was a group discussion in the style of “Question Time“, with a number of nominating bodies represented (TeCSA, CEDR, ICE, RICS, IDRS).
The discussion was very interesting but, unfortunately, for those who did not attend, the Chatham House Rule applies, and so I can’t tell you about the list of issues, or the answers! I know, what a spoil sport. Building you up something, only to drop you flat! Continue reading
Those involved in adjudication and, in particular, adjudication enforcement, will be familiar with the procedure laid out in section 9 of the TCC Guide; a procedure that developed after the Construction Act 1996 came into force in May 1998. Quite how many times this procedure has been used over the last ten years is difficult to estimate, but a significant body of case law has developed as a result. Continue reading
What a perfect defence to a claim: being able to tell the claimant, sorry folks but you’ve got the wrong defendant! We novated the contract, so you need to go after the people that took over from us.
Claims for interest are particularly contentious at present as:
I was recently involved in a case that came before HHJ Seymour QC in the Queen’s Bench division of the High Court. Rather than acting as an adjudicator and having my decision challenged on enforcement, I was acting as a joint expert for the parties. It was unusual to be on the other side of the fence for a change.
The case involved three properties, one claimant, two defendants and a third party (or part 20 defendant in modern parlance). Issues in the case were less than straightforward: Continue reading