Marc Rowlands QC Reflects On Taking Silk Last Year

A feature of adjudication now sadly familiar to practitioners is the way in which some referring parties apparently try to hamper the respondent's ability to respond to the claim.

People who get involved in litigation for the first time are often amazed that a successful party does not recover all the costs it expends in fighting the action.

Hastings council’s decision to close part of the town pier due to fears over its structural integrity put the provisions of the Building Act 1984 to the test – with perhaps surprising results.

In a credit crunch every party strives for value for money. This applies particularly to dispute resolution. Whether you are adjudicating, arbitrating or mediating, you want the right decision at the minimum cost.

Tony Bingham recently wrote about the case of Transport for Greater Manchester vs Thales Transport and Security Limited.

This was a claim in relation to professional services provided by the defendants on a project for the construction of a major road, the A55, in North Wales.

Since 2000 if a party has wanted to bring a claim to the Technology and Construction Court, it has had to comply with the pre-action protocol for construction and engineering disputes.

In August 2011, the Institution of Civil Engineers took the surprising decision to withdraw its sponsorship of the Conditions of Contract, which had borne its name since 1945.

The Keating Chambers update in this issue covers a significant legislative development on energy performance of buildings and recent case law on recovery of lost management time as damages.

A discussion on a claim by a tenant of the Pier was for statutory compensation under the Building Act 1984 resulting from the use of powers by the local authority to close the Pier to public access over concerns about its structural integrity and, therefore, closing the tenant's bingo hall and amusement arcade.

The adjudication regime instituted by the Housing Grants Construction and Regeneration Act (HGCRA) has been in place in the UK construction industry for almost a decade now. Since then, comparable although generally more restricted adjudication provisions have been enacted in Singapore, New Zealand and Australian jurisdictions.

The IChemE recently launched a complete suite of the new editions of the UK Forms of Contract for Process Plants.

Hackney Empire Theatre is a fine building and it puts on great live music, comedy drama and dance in the East of London.

In this webinar, we were joined by Paul Buckingham KC of Keating Chambers who discussed IChemE Forms of Contract and David McMahon, Director of Ryder Architecture who discussed Whipps Cross – collaboration in practice.

Towards the end of 2007, the English Court of Appeal produced an important decision dealing with an attempt to strike out a claim for abuse of the process of the Court on the basis that the claim could and should have been brought in previous litigation.

Where two or three construction practitioners are gathered together, talk often turns to the impenetrable mysteries of concurrency, global claims and the like.

A discussion focusing on an appeal which concerned the level of abstraction at which a tribunal must select and compare facts already pleaded with those proposed by way of amendment, so as to determine whether an amendment brought outside the expiry of the primary limitation period is a "new claim" under section 35 of the Limitation Act 1980.

Konkola Copper Mines plc owns one of the largest copper mines in the world, in Zambia. It engaged U&M, and in due course a Zambian U&M subsidiary incorporated for the purpose, to mine copper and waste.

Tender procedures for public contracts in this country are regulated by the Public Contracts Regulations 2006, which implements the European Directive 2004/18.