TS Eliot, Little Gidding:
“What we call the beginning is often the end, and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we all start from.”
We are on the home straight when it comes to the Construction Act 1996 changes coming into force. As 1 October fast approaches, we hope that we have done all that is necessary to prepare you. Don’t forget that you can still watch our webinar with Lynne McCafferty and John Hughes D’Aeth, or you can use our help and information note to guide you to the many materials that we have written on the new payment, adjudication and suspension rules. In a spot of crystal ball gazing, Paul Flook, Jennie Gillies and Lynne look at what may happen to adjudication.
In addition, during September, the NEC published amendments to its NEC3 suite of contracts, the JCT 2011 editions arrived in the bookshops (and on a CD for those with the digital service) and all of our remaining maintained materials were updated (including several standard documents: professional appointments, the landowner’s development agreement, the Pre-Construction Services Agreement (PCSA) and all the adjudication materials).
September has also seen the countdown to the start of the costs management pilot in the TCC, with parties having to use Precedent HB and comply with Practice direction 51G for any case with a CMC after 1 October 2011.
The Michaelmas court term may not have started yet, but we have had judgments on bonds, side agreements and variations, allegations of the unconscious bias of an arbitrator, whether pre-action disclosure in adjudication is possible, the number of “disputes” referred to an adjudicator, and indemnities and a fire at a hair salon.
In terms of new content, we have published practice notes on the JCT Public Sector Supplement and the ICC suite (which replace the ICE contracts), and made available to our subscribers a note on contributory negligence and contribution, a public procurement case tracker, a toolkit on the SRA Code of Conduct 2011, an article on consideration and a podcast on exclusion clauses and deliberate breach.
