Whilst interest in the recent UK judgment in the case of City Inn v Shepherd Construction may be confined to these shores, it is sufficiently important in the UK construction arena to warrant a mention on this Blog.
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The UAE construction sector is a continually developing market with complex transactions becoming increasingly prevalent. The evolution of the construction sector has highlighted the need for more robust construction contracts that deal with all the relevant risk issues for a project. read more »

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 test on completion duration shall be 90 days.
The first 30 days shall be a monitoring period during which the Contractor sets up the operation of [...] read more »

Question:
I am a project manager for the employer on a power plant project based in Europe. We have been on quite good terms with the contractor up until now. Last week the contractor sent us a claim for 12 weeks’ delay to the programme and for compensation costs (we are using the FIDIC Yellow Book [...] read more »

The U.S momentum to build “green” is rapidly gaining popularity, with the office market currently leading the way toward more sustainable structures. The construction industry, including the publishers of form construction contracts, is scrambling to keep up. ConsensusDOCS, a relatively new group of industry organizations that is promoting a family of contract forms [...] read more »

In the wake of the current downturn, employers will increasingly look for greater budget certainty under EPC or Turnkey contracts. This is where the contractor undertakes all tasks – design, construction, management etc – so that, upon completion, the employer merely needs to ‘turn the key’ and operation of the plant or building can [...] read more »

Recent examples illustrate clearly that cancelling a project can be very expensive. The City of Ottawa recently paid over C$36 million to settle claims from contractors arising from the cancellation of a light rail transit project. In Montréal, the termination of a contract to build an incinerator has resulted in years of costly [...] read more »

It’s official: the swine flu virus is now a ‘pandemic’ according to the World Health Organisation. The illness is of particular concern to the international construction sector, especially in countries where labourers live in communal accommodation. Rapid spreading of swine flu could potentially bring the sector to a standstill, causing significant delays, costs and lost [...] read more »