CONSTRUCTION DISPUTES

We are specialists in all forms of construction dispute resolution

Introduction

Construction disputes come in all shapes and sizes and can be resolved in many different ways. Essential to keeping disputes to a minimum, are good contract drafting, effective contract administration and a strong and sensible supply chain. If disputes do arise, they should be addressed early, with the aim of resolving them before goodwill is lost and positions become entrenched. Left to gain momentum, disputes can become much harder and more expensive to resolve. No two disputes are the same and therefore our clients need bespoke advice each time.

Best Advice

Construction disputes can range from critical, brand sensitive disputes, through to quick smash and grab disputes over non-payment for construction works and services, to emotionally charged professional negligence actions. A client might be hit with an August adjudication when its staff is thin on the ground because of annual leave, or it might face a claim that turns on the evidence of a senior ex-employee who now refuses to co-operate with its former employer. The point is that our dispute resolution advice is invariably given against a backdrop of significant business stress and disruption. Therefore our advice needs to be delivered with that in mind.

Excellent dispute resolution advice manages away a problem as quickly and painlessly as possible. It helps preserve important relationships within a client business and between disputing businesses. It minimises legal costs but maximises their recovery from an opponent if needs be. It limits the diversion of client staff away from their day to day profit making activities, to time spent instructing lawyers and providing them with evidence. It keeps a client’s business out of the media wherever possible and it thereby limits any reputational damage.

Our clients know that engaging with Ridgemont early and openly, is invariably the best way to help us to help them.

HOW RIDGEMONT CAN HELP

We have considerable experience of all types of disputes and all the methods of resolving them. It will be rare that something genuinely new comes across our desks. We know all of the pros and cons of say adjudication versus litigation, or arbitration versus litigation. We’ve dealt with hundreds of delay and disruption claims. We know in great detail the standard form contract suites out of which disputes emerge, in particular the JCT and NEC. When we advise a client about procurement and/or contract administration, we help it minimise the risk of disputes occurring and prepare it for should they do so. In that way, any subsequent dispute resolution assistance that we give that client, builds upon our earlier advice.

Above all else, by our advice we reassure our clients that they are in safe hands as we accompany them through the upheaval of any dispute

Case studies

A few of the disputes that we have advised our clients on:

Advising a main engineering contractor in defending a large domestic arbitration for delay in the completion of a waste to energy facility under a heavily amended NEC contract. This dispute involved considerable, complex engineering and programming evidence. There were also related satellite adjudication proceedings with two sub-contractors;
Advising a large national retailer in litigation against a firm of architects, over their contract administration of the refurbishment of our client’s flagship store under a JCT contract. This litigation involved 3rd party proceedings and appellate proceedings; and
Advising a main contractor in multiple adjudications against sub-contractors under JCT contracts, regarding the use of defective construction materials across a host of new UK residential sites. These disputes involved the use of complex evidence from the overseas factories where the materials were made and from overseas testing houses.

CALL TO ACTION

We help our clients resolve even the most complex of construction disputes. Where possible we engage with them early on. We always advise mindful of the pressures and sensitivities involved in disputes. We help our clients manage away the problems that they face, as cost-effectively and painlessly as possible. We emphasise the importance of clients trying to preserve good business relationships with opponents and of finding long term solutions instead of quick, temporary fixes. Above everything, we work hard to earn our clients’ trust and to take as much of their stress on to our shoulders as we can.