Adjudication under the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 (“1996 Act”) was introduced to provide a quick and enforceable interim decision; a sensible way of dealing expeditiously and relatively inexpensively with disputes.
Articles
Articles in the 2012/May Newsletter
Displaying 7 itemsWhy is that parties in adjudication sometimes behave so badly? Perhaps it is because adjudication being non consensual and adversarial creates an atmosphere of acrimony that leads to the kinds of behaviour not normally seen in court or arbitration proceedings.
It is well known now that adjudication is a quick process where searching for the perfect result is sacrificed in order to obtain an answer in a short period of time. This is accepted and the fact that adjudicators are allowed to make mistakes is well known.
It has turned out to be a bad quarter for the Construction Industry, with the Office of National Statistics blaming the nation’s fall back into recession on a 3% decrease in construction. The construction data was said to have been based on a survey of 8,000 construction companies.
Rumour has it there has been one enforcement in the TCC under the new legislation, but no report is yet available. I gave a lecture on 27 April 2012 to my local branch of the CIArb on the new payment regime and Tony Bingham spoke on the new adjudication provisions.
A complaint came across my desk recently regarding the failure of an adjudicator to declare a potential conflict of interest with a party representative.
The Northern Ireland Region of the Adjudication Society has followed with interest the progress of the Construction Contracts Bill through the Irish Oireachtas (parliament). The Bill includes payment and adjudication provisions similar to those in operation in the UK.