Construction, Property & Real Estate (Case Law Review, Issue 2 – February 2007)

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Construction, Property & Real Estate (Case Law Review, Issue 2 – February 2007)

We are pleased to announce that Miss Krista Lee has joined Keating Chambers in February 2007. Miss Lee was called to the Bar in 1996 and she specialises in construction, company, insolvency law and other commercial litigation.

ADJUDICATION

Settlement not a construction contract

Melville Dundas Ltd v Hotel Corporation of Edinburgh Ltd [2006] BLR 474 Court of Session Outer House

A settlement agreement was reached by which the value of the final account was agreed with the retention adjusted and a list of defects to be remedied by the contractor. The Outer House held that this was not a construction contract for the purposes of s.111 of the HGCR Act.

The case also includes important discussion of the extent to which rights of set-off can be excluded by express provision and whether they can be excluded by implication.

Agreement in writing in deed

Lead Technical Services Ltd v CMS Medical Ltd [2007] All ER (D) 270 CA

The Court of Appeal allowed the defendant client's appeal against summary judgment enforcing an adjudicator's decision in favour of the claimant engineers. The judge had agreed with the adjudicator in finding a deed entered into between the parties as fatally flawed, but the CA held that there was a real prospect of proving that the parties' agreement was contained within the deed for s.107 purposes and so summary judgment should not have been granted.

See Quietfield v Vascroft under Keating Chambers Reported Cases on failure to consider new evidence in subsequent adjudication.

See McConnell Dowell Constructors (Aust) v National Grid Gas Plc under Keating Chambers Reported Cases on adjudicator's jurisdiction over supplemental agreement.

See

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