The jurisprudence under the SOP Act continues to snowball and Mohan picked the highlights over the course of another contentious year of SOP case law. Of particular interest were the Ang Cheng Guan and CMC Ravena cases. Whilst the cases appeared to settle the question of the right of the review adjudicator to review the entirety of an adjudication decision, the question of whether a court should set aside a review adjudicator's decision for a misdirection in law was left open. It appears that further soul searching would be needed to gauge the extent to which the courts should engage in the merits of an adjudication decision in considering setting aside applications. When pressed, Mohan was of the view that the policy direction of adjudication as a quick and efficient method of addressing payment disputes should be kept as pure as possible. In a small and tightly knit construction community such as ours, Mohan also highlighted the Metropole and UES Holdings cases which reminded us of the need to exercise care when being placed in circumstances where we may be perceived to have exercised bias in favour of a party. All construction professionals and practitioners should take heed.

In contrast but consistent with other similar jurisdictions, the onset of the SOP Act has resulted in slim pickings on jurisprudence in substantive construction law. Paul nonetheless made a good fist of limited materials. As pointed out in the Dental Surgeons' case, it seems that the proper documentation of construction contracts remains elusive with as important an issue as the contractual completion date in dispute. The court in that case did allow Whatsapp messages to be introduced as evidence to determine the likely agreement as between the parties to the completion date. The TT International case broke new ground with the determination (under a PSSCOC works contract) that a contractor may not additionally recover loss of profits on a termination for convenience by the employer and that the contractually stipulated remedies including a defined 15% mark up under the definition of "Loss and Expense" did not entitle the contractor to claim more. This initiated an interesting aside during the question and answer session as to whether an employer would have to act in good faith when exercising its right to terminate for convenience. The jury remains open on that discussion.

Overall, a great start to the year and what will hopefully be the first of many more debates and exchanges over what will hopefully be a robust activity calendar for 2018.

Click HERE to view event photos. 

What Participant(s) Say

I’ve come to enjoy the Annual Construction Law Updates seminar as a yearly tradition for getting up to speed on the recent happenings and to be engaged by some of the most prominent legal minds in the industry, and to come together with peers from many different backgrounds for great post-event discussion and catching up.

The first half of this year’s seminar was a detailed yet engaging summary by Mr Mohan Pillay on the recent High Court rulings on applications filed to set aside adjudication determinations, followed by an overview by Mr Paul Sandosham on several prominent cases that took place in the past year. My greatest takeaway was learning from the ruling wherein an adjudicator who has dealt with most of the issues raised, but omitting to deal with one issue because he or she does not believe it to be determinative of the result, is not to be considered as a breach of natural justice.

The presentations were followed by a thought provoking Q&A session.

As always, in addition to the amount of detailed planning that goes into selecting the topic for each and every SCL event, a vote of thanks to the Secretariat for the excellent planning and execution of the event venue, setup and reception.

Contributed by:

Ruben Potter, Estellion & Associates LLP