Kluwer Construction Blog

The inaugural Youth Olympic Games hosted by Singapore in August last year left a positive impression on Singapore’s young guests. The fanfare would have been much bigger had the Singapore Sports Hub been available for the event.

At an estimated cost of S$1.33 billion, the new Sports Hub will boast a 55,000-seater retractable roof stadium, a 6,000-capacity Indoor Aquatic Centre, a 3,000-capacity Multi-Purpose Arena and a Water Sports Centre.

Despite the tender being awarded by the Singapore government in 2008, the PPP project commenced construction only in September 2010 – the result of delays from the 2008-2009 global financial crisis and high construction costs. It is now expected to [...]

The 2010 International Arbitration Survey by the School of International Arbitration at Queen Mary College, University of London, represents one of the largest empirical studies ever undertaken of corporate attitudes and practices regarding international arbitration. The focus – key factors influencing corporate decisions on international arbitration.

The 2010 survey sees a much broadened territorial scope to include emerging venues such as Singapore together with the established venues of London, Paris, Switzerland and New York.

The key factors influencing international arbitration identified by the survey are not surprising – governing law, seat of arbitration, choice of arbitral insti [...]

I had a great meal in an ethnic Indian restaurant recently and was pleasantly surprised to discover that the cook was an overseas Chinese!

The construction industry, like the food and beverage business, shows considerable partiality to foreign workers. The most common reason – lower labour costs. Thus, the construction industry is filled with foreign workers running the gamut from India, Sri Lanka, China, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines and even Myanmar.

Things however look set to change with the 2010 budget announcement including a call to increase local productivity as foreign workers now comprise almost a third of the total workforce. This has led to government moves to reduce dependence [...]

Chihuahuas…Retrievers…even St Bernards…Our evening constitutional round the Mid-Levels brings my wife and I into contact with a wide range of our canine friends, in varying degrees mostly unsuitable for living in the confines of the average Hong Kong apartment. However, I eye these mutts with new respect, following the influence of a particularly well-qualified pooch called Lulu, on a recent decision of the Technology & Construction Court in London.

IT supplier EDS is to pay a total of GB£318 million to settle a dispute over a contract which it entered into 10 years ago with the broadcaster BSkyB . This payment marks the end of one of the IT industry’s longest-running and most expensi [...]

First for the “Lean” – the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) Rules 2010 came into effect on 1 July 2010.

This third edition replaces the SIAC Rules 2007 and is part of SIAC’s efforts to stay lean and effective as it keeps apace with the rapid growth of international arbitration.

Key updates include an expedited arbitration procedure for claim amounts less than S$5 m or in cases of exceptional urgency. The expedited process requires an award to be issued within six months from the tribunal being constituted and the reasons for the award may be in “summary form” under the expedited procedure.

Also new to the Rules are the inclusion of a new rule on interim and emergency r [...]

Offer my wife a diamond and you’ll see her eyes sparkle and a warm smile light up her face. I certainly wouldn’t take a gamble on offering her sand instead with a patient explanation that diamonds are actually compressed sand.

The worth of “sands” in Singapore has taken on added dimensions in recent years given the republic’s dependence on imported sand from its neighbours for its thriving construction needs. Much hullabaloo has similarly been generated on the newsfront with the phased opening of two casinos, one of which happens to share the namesake of Marina Bay Sands.

Singapore’s construction demand in 2010 is projected to reach between S$21 billion and $27 billion this year [...]

Throughout the ongoing financial crisis, and in spite of the glum news all around, I continued to receive fresh inquiries from prospective investors interested in the wind power industry in China. Small wonder, as this industry has doubled in size every year since 2006.

Last year, my observation on investment in the wind power industry was that the timing might be right, but investors should be patient and be prepared for challenges.

In fact, some international wind farm developers have pulled out under the pressure of continuing low returns on investment.

Some of the major causes of low returns are as follows:

(a) difficult grid connection – the grid enterprises managing the state monopo [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

On 26 December 2009, the PRC Tort Liability Law (the “Tort Law”) was promulgated following a seven-year period of discussions and debate. The law will enter into effect on 1 July 2010.

The Tort Law marks a milestone in PRC legislative history, and will have myriad implications for diverse areas of private and commercial activity.