All articles by Tony Bingham – Page 28
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Features
Sending the boys round
You go to court, you win, you collect your money if you live that long. A loser that will not pay can delay for years. But now there are some radical new ideas in the wind for getting at a loser's assets.
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Features
How to do 32 jobs at once
The first standard form of contract for facilities management is here, and it covers everything from insurance to cleaning in terms that construction firms will find strangely familiar.
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Features
Trouble brewing …
Real ale sales are falling away, and housebuilders are directly responsible. The reason? A combination of creaky floorboards and older drinkers inability to hold their beer.
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Features
Modern European languages
The aim of the Construction Products Directive is to create Europe-wide standards on building products. Problem is, it s almost incomprehensible and in any case it may not work.
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Features
Slippery business
If you fall off a ladder at work, don t expect the courts to award you compensation automatically. In fact, a crop of recent cases suggests you ll have a hard time proving that anyone else was to blame.
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Features
A charge too far
Like any service provider, arbitrators need to know what their customers like and dislike about the way they do their job. What their customers don't like is cancellation charges.
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Features
Loser takes all
A new court procedure caps the amount of legal costs the winner of a case can claim. That s not such good news for winners or for their lawyers, so why not write and tell the Lord Chancellor so?
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Features
Welcome to our world
Thirteen months after the rest of the UK, Northern Ireland is about to get to grips with the Construction Act. What is there to learn from the past year s experience?
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Features
Better safe than sorry
The Court of Appeal has sent out a message that fines for health and safety offences have been set too low in the past. So avoid the risk of swingeing penalties by providing a safe working
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Features
Charters and partners
A charter can go a long way to clarify the intent behind the creation of a contract when the parties start falling fall out and have to go to court or arbitration.
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Features
Keeping up standards
The Joint Contracts Tribunal has published JCT98, the successor to JCT80 and all its amendments and supplements. So, what difference will it make?
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Comment
Many happy returns
The Construction Act is one year old tomorrow, and there really is something to celebrate. It has changed the face of the industry for the better and disgruntled a few lawyers in the process.
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Features
How to do adjudication
Two books on the Construction Act. Both helpful and well researched. But whereas the first gets an unconditional thumbs-up, the second has been partly overtaken by events.
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Features
The joy of specs
Eganised construction of average quality meets the requirements of standard contracts, but don't you think it's a bit joyless? So, how about a standard form that specifies top-quality craftsmanship?
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Features
Where the buck stops
When Oxford University's pharmacology department developed cracks in the plaster it sued the architect. So the architect sued the contractor – and lost. And thereby hangs a cautionary tale.
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Features
Rip-roaring success
Contractors have the chance to make National Construction Week go with a bang if they use it as an opportunity to stop meddling with standard subcontract forms and tear up onerous amendments.
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Features
Private and confidential
Expert witnesses from opposing sides may be ordered to meet before the trial to discuss their opinions on the dispute. But they shouldn't then be asked to reveal what was said.
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Comment
Adjudication has arrived
The first case on the enforcement of an adjudicator's decision has been decided by the senior judge in the Technology and Construction Court, and we now have a vital piece of case law.
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Features
Why is a lawyer like a bull?
This is the story of the architect who gave a speech at a lawyers jamboree in which he suggested that his audience make themselves redundant. And what's more, he has a point
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Features
Wrongful arrest
If a contract had a clause that says the employer can boot you off the job for not tying your shoelaces, would it be upheld by the courts? In England, quite possibly; other countries are more sensible