The Society of Construction Law Australia’s submission on proposed reforms to the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 2009 (SA) are now up on the Small Business Commissioner’s website.
Unhappily for him, my fellow SoCLA director Andrew Robertson had to do the heavy lifting on this, my own time being swamped by other things. He did a great job, and my contribution was Continue reading
I have been spending a bit of time in Darwin. As it happens, I am an accredited adjudicator there, but this time I have been there as counsel, again bowling over a determination of another adjudicator.
The first outing was before the Chief Justice, obtaining interlocutory relief ex parte on notice to restrain the other party from enforcing the determination it had obtained pending the hearing of our challenge. The usual practice in the Northern Territory had not been to grant relief, but happily, the Chief Justice gave indications that he was persuaded by my submissions that we had a prima facie case, and as to the balance of convenience, that the factors to weigh in the balance were potentially
He was thus minded to follow the New South Wales practice, noted in Williams v Concreting Services [2013] NSWSC 85 per McDougall J: Continue reading
I have remarked before that the Irish legislation for adjudication of construction disputes looks as good a model as any, but it took a while for the commencement to come through. But now, by S.I. No. 165/2016 – Construction Contracts Act 2013 (Appointed Day) Order 2016 we have a date Continue reading
Those who visit these pages from time to time might have noticed that it has been a little while since my last post, and perhaps guess that this is a symptom of idleness.
In fact, the contrary is true. Since getting back from Europe and the United States, I have had far too little time for sidelines. In moving to the beautiful Myponga Beach, I had in mind that these days I go to the airport rather more often than I go to the law courts in Adelaide, and so it is been continuing to prove: I have been in Sydney on dispute avoidance board business and in Darwin on adjudication determination challenge business.
I did rather think that I might have been able to set a bit of precedent in the Northern Territory courts, in terms of bringing the Northern Territory into line with the rest of the country, and in particular New South Wales, on the topic of what introductory relief should be granted after an adjudication challenge has been launched, but before it can be heard by the court. In the Northern Territory, the typical Continue reading