星空传媒

The consulation paper on reforming the Construction Act has been published. But let鈥檚 look at what we鈥檙e not being consulted about.

For a start, there鈥檚 no sign of a single procedure for adjudications. It would certainly make life much simpler for adjudicators and parties. But, on the other hand, one size does not always fit all, and by and large everyone has coped so far with the different rules.

There are differences on adjudicators giving the reasons for their decisions. The Construction Act contains nothing about this issue. The Scheme for Construction Contracts says the adjudicator should give reasons if asked to do so. Some adjudication procedures say he should not give reasons unless asked to do so, or not all. In other words, no change here.

At the moment, there is no express 鈥渟lip rule鈥� allowing an adjudicator to correct minor errors after a decision. But we know from court decisions that an adjudicator can correct an error, so there is no need to make an express provision for this.

The Scheme contains a couple of paragraphs about enforcement, which seemed to have wandered across from the Arbitration Act. They caused lots of confusion at first, but now everyone knows that you can enforce in court. The paragraphs are not going to be amended, but nobody takes any notice of them anyway.

It has been suggested that the act and Scheme should be changed to clarify the law in the light of court decisions. These involve claiming damages for breach of contract, the power of the adjudicator to rule on timing of referral notices, interest and multiple disputes. These are fully