Infrastructure

In­tro­duc­tion In this era of low eco­nom­ic growth and high in­fla­tion, it is no sur­prise that the con­struc­tion in­dustry is fa­cing a bru­tally chal­len­ging peri­od. Rock­et­ing in­terest rates, es­cal­at­ing ma­ter­i­al and la­bour costs, and grow­ing pess­im­ism, are heap­ing pres­sure on the sec­tor. Across the con­struc­tion sup­ply chain, in­solv­en­cies have been rampant in many coun­tries.This un­for­giv­ing cli­mate and gloomy out­look is delay­ing or de­fer­ring spend­ing and in­vest­ment, but it is also cre­at­ing con­cern, ten­sion and dis­cord in ex­ist­ing con­struc­tion pro­jects. These dif­fi­culties must be worked through by pro­ject stake­hold­ers to stave off full-scale dis­putes, yet dis­pute res­ol­u­tion pro­ceed­ings, such as ar­bit­ra­tion, fre­quently oc­cur across the in­dustry.The bleak back­drop forms the found­a­tion of the CMS In­ter­na­tion­al Con­struc­tion Study 2023, which draws on ex­tens­ive re­sponses col­lec­ted in late 2022 from in­dustry ex­perts and tar­geted in­ter­views with se­lec­ted seni­or pro­fes­sion­als. The re­port out­lines the dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances that the sec­tor faces, but high­lights the meas­ures that can be taken to lim­it or pre­vent the fal­lout.

We are pleased to an­nounce the pub­lic­a­tion of the 2022 edi­tion of our in­ter­na­tion­ally fo­cused An­nu­al Re­view of Eng­lish Con­struc­tion Law De­vel­op­ments. Now in its twelfth year, the An­nu­al Re­view sum­mar­ises key de­vel­op­ments in Eng­lish con­struc­tion law over the pre­vi­ous cal­en­dar year in­clud­ing de­vel­op­ments in re­lated com­mon law jur­is­dic­tions. The pub­lic­a­tion has been pre­pared with our in­ter­na­tion­al cli­ents in mind and aims to provide a great­er de­gree of back­ground and ana­lys­is than our reg­u­lar Law-Now alert ser­vice. This year’s edi­tion con­tin­ues to be in­flu­enced by the Cov­id-19 pan­dem­ic and in­cludes art­icles on frus­tra­tion and force ma­jeure claims, on-de­mand bonds and in­ten­tion­al breaches of con­tract. We also re­port on de­vel­op­ments in re­la­tion to the law on li­quid­ated dam­ages, an­oth­er top­ic of spe­cial in­terest in light of the delays to many pro­jects oc­ca­sioned by the pan­dem­ic.You can down­load a PDF ver­sion of the 2022 an­nu­al re­view be­low at the bot­tom of the page.Some of the pre­vi­ous an­nu­al re­views are in­cluded be­low­An­nu­al Re­view of Eng­lish Con­struc­tion Law De­vel­op­ments 2021An­nu­al Re­view of Eng­lish Con­struc­tion Law De­vel­op­ments 2020An­nu­al Re­view of Eng­lish Con­struc­tion Law De­vel­op­ments 2019An­nu­al Re­view of Eng­lish Con­struc­tion Law De­vel­op­ments 2018Oth­er Law Now con­struc­tion con­tent can be ac­cessed on the Con­struc­tion portal of our Law-Now web­site found here. You can also find out more about CM­S' ex­pert­ise in con­struc­tion and en­gin­eer­ing and in­fra­struc­ture.

In­tro­duc­tion The COV­ID-19 crisis is an ex­treme ex­ample of the many un­ex­pec­ted in­cid­ents that im­pact con­struc­tion pro­jects, res­ult­ing in heightened ten­sions and dis­putes amongst stake­hold­ers. The pan­dem­ic has ac­cen­tu­ated many of the typ­ic­al fric­tions that oc­cur in the con­struc­tion in­dustry, as well as high­light new chal­lenges. No mat­ter how ex­per­i­enced or as­tute the parties to a pro­ject are, when ne­go­ti­at­ing and con­clud­ing con­tracts, there is al­ways the po­ten­tial for an un­fore­seen event to cause ma­jor dis­rup­tion, res­ult­ing in com­mer­cial pres­sures and fin­an­cial losses.Re­ad­just­ing Risks, the latest CMS In­ter­na­tion­al Con­struc­tion Sur­vey for 2021, is avail­able to down­load now. This year's re­port ex­amined more than 50 re­sponses from seni­or mem­bers of the in­dustry and con­duc­ted in­ter­views with lead­ing fig­ures that have key re­spons­ib­il­it­ies for con­struc­tion con­tracts, pro­jects and the res­ol­u­tion of dis­putes. The sur­vey drew in re­sponses from across the world, es­pe­cially Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and Lat­in Amer­ica.    The re­port show­cases the primary trends in the mar­ket, from the in­creas­ing en­thu­si­asm for ar­bit­ra­tion as a pre­ferred form of dis­pute res­ol­u­tion, along with mount­ing pref­er­ences for me­di­ation and oth­er forms of al­tern­at­ive dis­pute res­ol­u­tion (ADR), to in­dustry-wide re­cog­ni­tion that keep­ing bet­ter re­cords and man­aging change more ef­fect­ively are vi­tal to min­im­ising ten­sions and po­ten­tial dis­putes. It also re­views the ad­di­tion­al strain of COV­ID-19 on the in­dustry.

We are pleased to an­nounce the pub­lic­a­tion of the 2021 edi­tion of our An­nu­al Re­view of Eng­lish Con­struc­tion Law De­vel­op­ments: An In­ter­na­tion­al Per­spect­ive. Now in its el­ev­enth year, the An­nu­al Re­view sum­mar­ises key de­vel­op­ments in Eng­lish con­struc­tion law over the pre­vi­ous cal­en­dar year. The pub­lic­a­tion has been pre­pared with our in­ter­na­tion­al cli­ents in mind and aims to provide a great­er de­gree of back­ground and ana­lys­is than our reg­u­lar Law-Now alert ser­vice. This year’s pub­lic­a­tion con­tains a strong em­phas­is on pan­dem­ic-re­lated is­sues, in­clud­ing chal­lenges to calls un­der on-de­mand bonds, ter­min­a­tion scen­ari­os and can­celled pro­jects. Also in­cluded are de­vel­op­ments in the law as to design li­ab­il­ity and in­dir­ect and con­sequen­tial loss ex­clu­sions, con­tinu­ing themes from pre­vi­ous years. You can down­load a PDF ver­sion of the 2021 an­nu­al re­view be­low at the bot­tom of the page.Some of the pre­vi­ous an­nu­al re­views are in­cluded be­low­An­nu­al Re­view of Eng­lish Con­struc­tion Law De­vel­op­ments 2020An­nu­al Re­view of Eng­lish Con­struc­tion Law De­vel­op­ments 2019An­nu­al Re­view of Eng­lish Con­struc­tion Law De­vel­op­ments 2018Oth­er Law Now con­struc­tion con­tent can be ac­cessed on the Con­struc­tion portal of our Law-Now web­site found here. You can also find out more about CM­S' ex­pert­ise in con­struc­tion and en­gin­eer­ing and in­fra­struc­ture.

Wel­come to the 2018 edi­tion of our in­ter­na­tion­ally fo­cused An­nu­al Re­view of Eng­lish Con­struc­tion Law De­vel­op­ments.2017 has been an­oth­er busy year for the de­vel­op­ment of Eng­lish con­struc­tion law. This...

Wel­come to the 2017 edi­tion of our in­ter­na­tion­ally fo­cused An­nu­al Re­view of Eng­lish Con­struc­tion Law De­vel­op­ments.2016 has been a busy year for the de­vel­op­ment of Eng­lish con­struc­tion law, mak­ing this...