A 2022 report into Construction Adjudication in the UK (Tracing trends and guiding reform by Kings College London) has strongly suggested that the project team are the biggest cause of construction disputes that end in adjudication. The four most common causes cited by the 249 respondents were: inadequate contract administration
The RIBA Construction Contracts and Law Survey 2022 has again shown that roughly 1/3 projects start without a contract being in place: 65% signed before construction starts (yay) 32% between the start and end of construction (ahem) 2% after completion (oiks) 2% never signed (arggh). Back in 2011, David Mosey
The 2022 RIBA Construction Contracts and Law Survey reviewed whether the Net Zero goals of the UK government, the climate crisis and wider sustainability goals were being reflected in contracts for projects. The Chancery Lane Project, Zero Construct and the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals are all encouraging us to
How many errors can one contract have in their clauses relating to liquidated damages? Genuine pre-estimate of loss In Buckingham v Peel, the contract included a clause stating: The Parties agree that… having given careful consideration to this matter, all LADs payable by the Contractor are considered by the Parties
What are the alternatives to retention? In my view, the retention is effectively ransom money and the parties rarely know who actually owns it. It can be kidnapped and held as a form of leverage. Its two key purposes are: security against defective work or security against insolvency within the
No-one cares what you think your contract meant… As an English court said: What each of the parties intended or understood by their written and spoken communications is irrelevant unless that intention or understanding was shared with and agreed or accepted by the other party. English legal rules on contract
In 1759 Arthur Guinness signed a 9000-year lease at a rent of £45. A long lease is normally 99 years and a lease for 999 years is often seen as equivalent to freehold. So 9000 years? You won’t be surprised to know that he purchased the site a few years
Is collaboration ever going to be the norm, or will it always be niche? A panel at the World Commerce and Contracting EMEA Summit 2022 debated this issue. The drivers in favour of collaboration were: The pandemic effect. The events of 2020 forced many clients to collaborate with their suppliers
Contracts are a sponge which gather knowledge and information from multiple sources… on average an organisation will have 24 different systems which contain contract-related data. But that means we do not have a single source of truth. Where is your contract data stored and what does it tell you? Contracts
Do we set small comfortable objectives in relation to our contracting process and then execute them in a small way? Are you more excited by contract evolution than contract revolution? If you want to stay small, or avoid failure, then don’t start a contract lifecycle management (CLM) process. But if