Articles

I was pleased to see that we have a new series for this newsletter called ‘Back to Basics’. This is welcome because, after 14 years of adjudication, complacency has grown. Adjudication is often seen as the only route for dealing with the dispute.

After much debate the Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act 2012 of Malaysia received Royal Assent on 18 June 2012 . It came into force on the 22 June 2012, and so Malaysia now has a statutory payment and adjudication regime for construction contracts.

With the season of goodwill almost upon us, this double edition of the Adjudication Society’s newsletter provides something of the Past, Present, and Yet to Come reminiscent of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol.

As many of you are aware from previous newsletters or otherwise, the Construction Contracts Bill was dramatically passed by the Irish Seanad (Upper House) in the dying hours of the last parliament.

A criticism sometimes levelled at us in the Adjudication Society is that we can seem to focus on the problems with adjudication rather than on how to use the process.

From time to time complaints arise regarding decisions containing grammatical or factual errors.

Some people believe (incorrectly) that a Black Hole and an Insolvent Company are one and the same thing.

In the November 2011 edition of this newsletter I wrote an article about a panel debate held on the ‘new’ payment provisions by the London and South East Region. One year on, I thought it was worthwhile reviewing how they are faring.

In PC Harrington Contractors Limited v Systech International Limited [2012] EWCA 1371 (Civ) handed down on 23 October 2012, the Court of Appeal confirmed that an Adjudicator is not entitled to be paid his fees where he commits an error of jurisdiction or breach of natural justice, with t

After much debate the Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act 2012 of Malaysia received Royal Assent on 18 June 2012. [Rules of Malaysia, Act 746, Construction Industry Payment And Adjudication Act 2012.

A complaint came across my desk recently regarding the failure of an adjudicator to declare a potential conflict of interest with a party representative.

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.

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.

Why 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.

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.

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.

Over recent years, much has been written, and even more said, about the quality of performance and abilities of adjudicators.

The extent to which adjudicators can set out their thinking in advance of issuing a decision has recently been considered by the Court of Appeal in Lanes Group Plc v Galliford Try Infrastructure Limited [2011] EWHC 1 [2011] EWCA Civ 1617.

Whether a complaint surrounding an adjudicator’s resignation will be upheld will very much depend on the facts.