Newsletter
Information for members
November 2002

Previous issue: October 2002
Next issue: January 2003

Programme

A reminder that the general evening meetings are free of charge to members and guests and that no booking is necessary

A date for your 2003 diary!

The Brewery Lunch has been booked for Friday, 28th February 2003. The guest speaker will be announced and tickets will be on sale shortly.

SCL Hudson Prize 2002

We hope that many of you have already decided to enter this year's competition! Remember that the closing date for entries is 31st December.

In addition to the kudos that comes with being an SCL Hudson Prize winner, the prizes include money, wine and a free year's membership of the Society. If you have any queries or want a copy of the entry details, call Jackie Morris at the Admin office.

New Environment Agency Website

The Environment Agency have just launched a new website called NETREGS, giving clear guidance and advice on all legislation governing the construction sector.

Use of the site is free and aims to make it easy for clients and the supply side to find their way through the every growing mound of legislation covering the environmental aspects of construction.

The website address is www.environment-agency.gov.uk/netregs

Dispute Resolution Guidance

As you may know, the Office of Government Commerce has recently published a document on Dispute Resolution Guidance together with the Lord Chancellor's Pledge on ADR for Government procurement.

These may be found on the Office of Government Commerce's website, www.ogc.gov.uk

If you have any comments on these documents, they should be forwarded to Roger Hankey, Construction Division, Property and Construction Directorate of the OGC; his e-mail address is roger.hankey@ogc.gsi.gov.uk

SCL Response to HSE Initiative

The Construction Policy section of the Health and Safety Executive has launched an initiative to improve safety in the construction industry. The initiative takes the form of an on-line discussion forum and a discussion document entitled "Revitalising Health & Safety in Construction". The discussion document may be downloaded free of charge from http://www.hse.gov.uk/disdocs/construction.htm, which is also the site of the on-line forum. The deadline for contributions is the end of this year.

Council is keen to support this HSE initiative and submit a coordinated response of members' views and suggestions for HSE's consideration. Members wishing to contribute to this response are invited to send their comments and/or suggestions to Derek Ross at derekross@scl.org.uk by 15th December 2002.

Paris Conference

Members of the Society are invited to attend a conference at the Maison du Barreau in Paris on 9th December 2002 at 6pm when Simon Lofthouse and Robert Stevenson will be speaking on construction law in England and Wales.

The specific topics being covered are arbitration, adjudication and the roles of architects and engineers as independent certifiers in traditional UK contracts.

The event is being organised by Anne Dircks-Dilly of Dircks-Dilly Favier, 40 Rue Paul Valery, 75116 Paris, tel: 01.45.00.00.00, fax: 01.45.00.38.26, and is a joint promotion between l'Association des Juristes Franco-Brittaniques and la Commission de Droit International.

Membership fees

Council has decided that the subscriptions for 2003 need to be increased. From 1st January 2003, therefore, the joining fee and annual membership fee will be £60 and £95 respectively. The subscriptions have remained constant for the past four years, during which period the scale of our activities has increased significantly.

SCL Web Site: www.scl.org.uk

Have you explored SCL's website? Recently redesigned, it is friendly and easy to use. The newsletters and other up-to-date information from SCL - all can be found on the site. It has other uses too. What is the quickest way to find a recent House of Lords judgment? Use the links on www.scl.org.uk. Need to check the Construction Contracts (England and Wales) Exclusion Order (or lost your copy of the Scheme)? Again, you will find them by going to the links. Have you tried using the papers search facility? Need to know something about the Office of Government Commerce (OGC)? Look at Vivien Bodnar's paper (August 2002). Or do you have a knotty problem with a termination for convenience clause? Read John Tackaberry's paper on the subject (April 2002). Over 50 papers can now be found on the website - 27 of them being papers that have not been printed. Do please take a look! You will be including it amongst your favorites!

SCL Papers

The paper given by John Uff Arbitration with the Benefit of the Construction Act, given at the joint meeting in London on 12th November of SCL, TeCBA and the ICE, can be found on the web. Printed copies will be sent to all members in due course. Playing with Fire and the Contribution Act: The House of Lords' Decision in the Co-op v Taylor Young case by Andrew Bartlett QC and Kim Franklin will be published and sent to members very shortly.

Construction Industry Council

The Construction Industry Council is inviting comments on a consultation paper "Review of the Planning Enforcement System in England". Further details are available on the SCL website. Please email comments to Christopher Miers at christophermiers@scl.org.uk by 29th November 2002.

CUBATG Guidance for Adjudicators

This Guidance, launched by the Construction Minister Brian Wilson MP on 23rd July, is now available on the SCL website as a pdf file. Drafted and published by the pan-industry Construction Umbrella Bodies Adjudication Task Group, it arises out of the review of the Scheme and Construction Act and covers a number of specific issues raised in that review. It is essential reading for all adjudicators - and others involved in adjudication too.

University of California

The University of California is running a number of international law courses in Summer 2003 that they think might be of interest to members of SCL.

The courses include "Orientation in USA Law" providing a four week overview of the US legal system, a two week "Structuring and international joint venture" course and also their "Summer Master of Arts Degree in International Commercial Law", which entails attending courses over a six week period during 3-5 consecutive summers.

Further information about the University and its various courses may be found on its website www.law.ucdavis.edu

SCL Singapore

The Society of Construction Law (Singapore) had its inaugural meeting, following its successful application for official registration as a society, at the Oriental Hotel, Singapore, on Monday 21st October 2002. (Earlier in the year, Vivian Ramsay QC had given a talk to what could only be an unofficial gathering of the new Society's intending members.) Philip Britton, Director of the Centre of Construction Law at King's College London and an SCL Council member, talked about building control in England & Wales; then Dr Anne Netto from the Department of Building, National University of Singapore, discussed the Singapore approach to the same area. Questions and discussion followed, with a lively and varied audience of over 50 attending. Steps are now being taken to form a similar society in Malaysia.

SCL in Latin America

One of the speakers from the SCL/Kings College London conference earlier this year, Roberto Hernandez, is considering setting up a Society of Construction Law, Latin America which, whilst it will be based in Mexico City, will also form links with other South American and Central American countries. Anybody with links to these countries, who is also interested in participating in a Latin American Society of Construction Law should contact Christopher Miers at christophermiers@scl.org.uk

Links with Barcelona

The current President of the European Society for Construction Law, Prof Dr Alfonso Hernandez Moreno is seeking to expand the list of law firms affiliated to the Masters of International Law, which course is run by the ISDE and University of Barcelona. During part of the study period, Masters degree students find placements with the affiliated firms. For more information please contact Christopher Miers, christophermiers@scl.org.uk

Change the Face of International Turnkey Contracts

The ICC Commission on International Commercial Practices, based in Paris, is currently working on a draft of a new Major Projects Turnkey contract for international construction. The mandate of the group is to create a contract that is fair to all parties. If you are interested in taking part (at your own or your firm's expense!) contact robertknutson@scl.org.uk

Contracted Mediation

King's College London and University College London are collaborating in order to collect and analyse data on contracted mediation. Contracted mediation attempts to fuse team building, dispute avoidance and dispute resolution in one procedure. The impartial contracted mediation panel, consisting of one lawyer and one commercial expert who are both trained mediators, is appointed at the outset of the project. The panel attends site meetings and conducts workshops. The panel members should therefore have a working knowledge of the project and the individuals working on that project. This knowledge allows the panel to resolve contractual differences before they escalate, and provides an immediate medium for the confidential, mediated resolution of disputes.

However, experience of its actual use in practice is limited and evidence supporting the benefits of contracted mediation is anecdotal(1). For example, it could provide an economic dispute management technique for the majority of the industry's projects that cannot justify the cost of a dispute review board. But is there a real demand for contracted mediation in the industry? In other words; does it offer real benefits, is there a need for contracted mediation and is there a willingness to pay for it?

Recently, some major players in the supply side of the industry have started to actively encourage the use of contracted mediation for future projects. Further, the Government's "Dispute Resolution Guidance" pledges a commitment to ADR and states that its policy is to avoid disputes and "to ensure that the relationships between the client and supplier are non-adversarial... litigation should usually be treated as the dispute resolution method of last resort".(2) It is therefore possible that we will see some use of this process on several new developments in the next few years.

The research project hopes to capture these developments, collect data on its implementation, and provide the first research on contracted mediation in practice. If you have any experience of contracted mediation, or would like to consider using it on a project or would just like further information then please contact Nicholas Gould (Senior Research Fellow, King's College) on 020 7956 9354 or nicholasgould@scl.org.uk

(1) Contracted mediation was used on Jersey Airport, see "Stopping disputes before they start" Commercial Lawyer Special Report, February 2001. (2) Office of Government Commerce, "Dispute Resolution Guidance" www.ogc.gov.uk

Institute of Structural Engineers

The following two talks will take place at the Institute of Structural Engineers, 11 Upper Belgrave Street, London SW1. The talks are free and no booking is necessary.

Thursday, 5 December, 6.00pm
The Ramspol storm surge barrier: A nylon reinforced rubber inflatable dam.
Speaker: Aad van der Horst.

Thursday, 12 December, 6.00pm
Façade engineering – what’s behind the façade?
Speaker: Dr Stephen Ledbetter.

Dinner (there is a charge of £40 + VAT for dinner) will follow each of these meetings. To make a dinner reservation, or for any other details of the meetings, contact the IStructE directly on 020 7235 4535 or mail@istructe.org.uk

SCL Membership

Finally, we are pleased to welcome a record number of 84 new members to the Society during the month of October. They are:

Regional Coordinators

Are you moving? Will your contact details change? Do we have your email address? Please tell Membership Administration so that we can keep our records up to date.

Membership/Administration
67 Newbury Street
Wantage, Oxon., OX12 8DJ
Tel: 01235 770606
Fax: 01235 770580
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