Kluwer Construction Blog

To continue the nuclear theme of my last blog, which considered the legal and regulatory frameworks necessary for a country aspiring to nuclear power, and suggested that the UAE had set the bar high in its progress to date, this blog looks at what other countries in the region are up to and how all these projects might be financed.

I had the good fortune to attend the Middle East Nuclear Energy Summit in Amman, Jordan last month. Jordan is arguably second only to the UAE in the race for peaceful nuclear energy. Indeed the Chairman of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission told the conference of his country’s plan to become a net exporter of electricity, and to use their indigenous su [...]

On Monday, April 19, 2010, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia handed down “the longest-ever prison sentence” for a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violation. Charles Jumet was sentenced to 87 months in prison for conspiring to violate the FCPA and for making false statements to federal agents. Jumet, a vice president of Ports Engineering Consultants Corp. (PECC), pled guilty to paying over $200,000 in bribes to high-ranking Panamanian government officials between 1997 and 2003 in exchange for maritime contracts to maintain lighthouses and buoys along Panama’s waterways. (PECC’s president, John Warwick, also has pled guilty to the same conduct and is scheduled to [...]

Answer: when it’s an affirmation. Consider the questions which Shell raised in an appeal case recently decided by the High Court (commented on by Vincent Connor in his last post):

Shell’s position was that Centurion Petroleum Corporation was in repudiatory breach and that Shell had clearly “accepted” this repudiation. The problem they faced was that the arbitral tribunal had interpreted their letter notifying Centurion that their contract was at an end as an “affirmation” of the contract – an interpretation with a significant price tag attached. On appeal, Shell were asking the Court “what principle requires a clear election to terminate on the basis that a substantial sum is recoverable t [...]

When is it safe to terminate under a contract?

Volcanoes – we have rather a lot of them in Asia, but even we’ve been obsessing about the infamous Icelandic one, this week. Though 6000 or more miles away from the action, Japanese car manufacturers relying on components from Ireland and Korean mobile phone suppliers ready to send their wireless wares to a waiting world, have been among those frustrated as the volcanic ash cloud has choked airfreight routes. Which got me thinking…not so much about force majeure (I’ll leave that to my holidaying partners examining their insurance documents to seek support for their compensation claims!) but about the options a contracting party faces when th [...]

Swiss construction companies have recently become the targets of take-overs by foreign contractors or investors. The first such acquisition was that of Losinger Group by the French construction giant Bouygues. The long-lasting battle between the UK investment fund Laxey and the largest Swiss construction group, Implenia, however ended differently, when Laxey sold its shareholdings after having failed to take over the Swiss group. Following Laxey’s withdrawal, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court confirmed the Swiss financial markets regulator’s ruling that Laxey had breached the Federal Stock Exchange Act when it failed to disclose that it had acquired a substantial stake in Implenia. Crimina [...]

INTRODUCTION

News headlines in the UAE have recently proclaimed that “companies defaulting on salaries will soon be a thing of the past” (Gulf News), as the UAE government has launched its Wage Protection System (the “WPS”). Certainly the WPS is a significant step to protect the rights of workers in the UAE, and given the size and importance of the construction sector in the UAE, the WPS will also have a big impact on how employers in the UAE construction industry operate and pay employees. Below we look at the WPS, how it will operate and the impact the WPS will have on employers and employees across the UAE.

WHAT IS THE WPS?

The WPS is an electronic salary transfer system that requires com [...]

I am a contractor working on a wastewater project in Eastern Europe, using the FIDIC Yellow Book –Design & Build. Vol.3 of our contract contains the following clause:

“Tests on Completion

The first 30 days shall be a monitoring period during which the Contractor sets up the operation of the plant and conducts his own water quality tests to confirm that the final effluent consent has been met. At the end of this period the Contractor shall notify the Engineer that the plant is complete and meeting the Process Guarantee which then shall be met by a further 30 consecutive days before Taking Over can take place.”

We have met the final 30 consec [...]

Post prepared by Karina Chichkanova (Partner, Head of Salans’ St. Petersburg Real Estate Group) and Galina Pashkovskaya (Associate)

In connection with the constantly increasing volume of construction in Russia, one of the main issues that developers and construction companies encounter is the problem of managing the waste that results from wrecking or construction works, as well as “abandoned” waste located at the land plot under development.

“Ownership of and responsibility for waste” provisions of Russian law and construction work contracts or waste removal and disposal contracts in Russia are very important and should not be ignored by the parties.

The key legal issue that arises [...]

Monday was a public holiday in China, to celebrate Qing Ming, the Chinese tomb-sweeping festival which also happily coincided with Easter. I spent some time explaining to my Chinese friends the Easter story, and how in recent times there have been other interpretations involving bunnies and chocolate eggs.

China has been busy hatching some of its own contractual eggs by taking FIDIC standard forms traditionally used by International Contractors in their overseas projects, and adapted to reflect local conditions and times.

The FIDIC Silver Book has been considered by the the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development (“MOHURD”) to promote the EPC contracting model in China. A draft MOH [...]

When forced to litigate in the U.S., many businesses – especially multinational ones – prefer to be in federal rather than state court. The U.S. Supreme Court just made it a bit easier to fulfill that desire.

Most construction disputes are contract cases not involving federal law, so a federal court will only have jurisdiction if the suit involves more than $75,000 and is between citizens of different U.S. states. The key question is usually: where is a corporation a “citizen” for the purpose of determining whether such “diversity of citizenship” exists?

By statute, a corporation is a citizen of both the state (1) where it is incorporated, and (2) where it maintains its “pri [...]