On 13 November 2008 we gathered together at our annual conference. This year we were The Environmentally Friendly Conference and had a sterling programme and line up of speakers guaranteed to entertain and educate. They did not disappoint.
As a Society we set ourselves 5 objectives for the conference they were:
1. To provide delegates with some insight into judicial thinking on the subject of adjudication by way of a keynote speech;
2. To inform delegates of current problems being encountered in the Adjudication Process;
3. To consider actions taken to resolve these problems;
4. To provide delegates with the opportunity to consider alternative methods of resolution for these problems;
5. To offer delegates the opportunity to discuss the adjudication process in the United Kingdom by way of workshop sessions:
How did we achieve our objectives?
Our morning session was conducted under the stewardship of John Tackaberry QC who had great pleasure in introducing the Honourable Mr Justice Akenhead who had agreed to provide our Keynote address. Clearly objective 1 had been fulfilled in some style. It is noticeable that the guidance from the TCC in particular is shaping the future of adjudication and one wonders who could have imagined the journey that this relatively young means of dispute resolution has taken in its short existence.
The remainder of the morning sessions tackled objectives 2, 3 and 4 and the members were roundly entertained firstly by Mark Enwhistle followed by John Redmond who respectively covered the view of adjudicators and lawyers and the role they play in the adjudication process.
Mark sent out a plea to party representatives to assist the adjudicator in his task which he felt needed greater prominence if the adjudication process was to run smoothly. After making this plea he turned his attention to the principle of good management which he said was essential if an adjudicator was to complete his task on time, get it right and ultimately get paid for his labours. Mark took the audience through what he considered were the skills that an adjudicator might adopt in dealing with the adjudication and in doing so posed the question to party representatives over the need for endless submission which he submitted were often neither necessary nor helpful.
Mark concluded his thoughts from the adjudicator’s perspective by stating that the adjudication process was working and despite the odd rogue decision and bad adjudicator the users were relatively happy with the system. His final plea was directed to the users and their representatives to provide good quality submissions which would allow an adjudicator to provide a correct decision whilst being predictable, reliable and professional in execution of his duties. I don’t see many arguments over these wise words.
Follow that was the cry placed before John Redmond who stepped up and provided a compelling case on behalf of the lawyer/party representative. At the core of John’s view was that he wanted Adjudication to provide him with a favourable decision for his client which would be enforceable. He took us through the steps from drafting the Adjudication clause up to providing submissions to the adjudicator and reminded us of the basics including;
Crystallise the dispute;
Attempt to agree your adjudicator with the other party – now there’s a thought;
Refer the dispute i.e. both parties positions:
From an adjudicator’s point of view he exploded the myth over witness statements and the seemingly slavish and unnecessary reliance placed upon them by party representatives when it is clear they are unlikely to be properly tested. Can you hear the cry from the adjudicators in the room; oh don’t you wish all party representatives were from the Redmond mould.
By way of a quick shuffle of our programme due to one of our speakers being called overseas at the eleventh hour Messrs Potter and Quigg provided us with the Society’s answer to Morecambe and Wise. You can decide who the short fat one with the hairy legs is. Ed Quigg started us off with some poignant views by reminding us that users would like this job called adjudication done inside the 28 days period and he bemoaned the trend to use that as a starting point for the adjudicator to secure more time. Ed then further reminded us that users wanted a correct decision with reasons identifying that the adjudicator had understood the respective cases.
Interestingly Ed mentioned that in his view users liked the idea of a meeting which he suggested was often vital to a user to allow them to secure closure i.e. having their day in court.
In contrast Martin cantered through enforcement issues with great dexterity pointing out to all concerned the pitfalls that exist in this process.
In order to deliver objective 5 the society reverted back to its workshop format for the afternoon session which proved to be very successful. Under the guidance of John Sims were a merry bunch of industry experts to conduct discussion on the following topics:
Jurisdictional challenges
Bullying
Late referrals
Costs
Extension of time for delivery of a decision
I watched contently as 120 delegates benefitted from an exchange of knowledge that workshops provide and surmised that the Society is delivering their objective to members. Not bad for the new kid on the block.
Many people assist in making a conference work and they are too numerous to mention however it would be wrong not to single out the efforts of Martin Potter who yet again was the driving force behind our success at the conference, as you can imagine the day after conference we started planning next years event which will be need to be good to improve upon this one.