Directors risk being personally liable to contractor if their company orders additional work when there is no reasonable prospect of paying for it. Continue reading “RUNNING ON FUMES”
Tag: construction contracts
The Reasonable Price of Disloyalty
Is actual loss still the true north in assessing what is reasonable compensation when section 75 of the Contracts Act 1950 is engaged, post-Cubic Electronics? The Court of Appeal recently had to consider such compensation for the disloyalty of a political party member. Continue reading “The Reasonable Price of Disloyalty”
WORD OF MOUTH
An oral arbitral award on liability? Continue reading “WORD OF MOUTH”
HALF PREGNANT
Can a party be regarded as having acceded to the jurisdiction of the arbitral tribunal for a particular application made in the arbitration, despite having objected to the jurisdiction of the tribunal over the arbitration as a whole? Apparently so. Continue reading “HALF PREGNANT”
SHADOW PLAY
“The dalang is more than a puppeteer. His skill makes us believe that we see a war between two great armies, but there is no war. There is only the dalang.” Grant Morrison: The Invisibles no. 5. Continue reading “SHADOW PLAY”
STOPPING TIME
An arbitration was commenced outside the limitation period, after a court action – which was filed in time – was stayed. Is the claimant time barred? That depends on when time stopped to run … Continue reading “STOPPING TIME”
Parallels
Is a contractor limited by the FIDIC Yellow Book (2nd Ed, 2017) to refer disputes only to the Dispute Avoidance Adjudication Board (“DAAB”)? Or does he have parallel rights under the Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act 2012 (“CIPAA”) which he can invoke to initiate statutory adjudication? Continue reading “Parallels”
BYPASS
The subcontractor wins an adjudication against the main contractor, and asks the employer to pay him the awarded amount. The employer says it does not owe money to the main contractor, because it has claims against the main contractor after terminating the main contract. The main contractor disputes the termination. Will the courts – in the subcontractor’s direct payment application – decide who is right and who is wrong in the main contract dispute in order to ascertain whether money is owed to the main contractor (and hence can be paid directly to the subcontractor)? The Court of Appeal dealt with this recently in JDI Buildtech (M) Sdn Bhd v Danga Jed Development Malaysia Sdn Bhd [2024] CLJU 373. Continue reading “BYPASS”
ASSESSING REASONABLE TIME
How does one assess reasonable time, in a way that will not allow the employer to take advantage of its own fault, and also not give the contractor more time than that caused by the employer’s delay? Guidance was provided recently by the Appellate Division of the Singapore High Court in ICOP Construction (SG) Pte Ltd v Tiong Seng Civil Engineering (Pte) Ltd [2024] SGHC(A) 1. Continue reading “ASSESSING REASONABLE TIME”
NO FREE RIDES
One of the common frustrations faced by a claimant in arbitration proceedings is having to deal with a recalcitrant respondent who refuses to pay the deposit required by the arbitral institution or tribunal. More often than not, in the interests of time, the claimant would have to fork out the money to pay the respondent’s portion of the deposit in order not to delay the proceedings.
Can the claimant refuse to pay the respondent’s portion and proceed to litigate in court instead of continuing with the arbitration? If it does so, can the respondent obtain a stay of the court proceedings on the basis that the dispute should be arbitrated despite previously refusing to pay the arbitration deposit? These issues were recently dealt with in a seminal judgment given by the Court of Appeal in JSB v ACSB [2023] 1 LNS 2176. Unless otherwise stated, the paras referred to below shall mean paras in this Court of Appeal judgment.