Maximise Your Profit, Minimise Your Risk

Recently published in Construction Law Journal, Maximise your Profit, Minimise Your Risk provides advice to contractors on how to do precisely that.

It identifies common mistakes made by contractors on live projects and how to minimise the all-too-common risks encountered by contractors by providing advice and guidance on essential elements of cost and progress checking and control. In simple terms it advises contractors’ to understand fully how the commercial matters on the contracts need to be dealt with and to “Follow the Contract”.

It also identifies the common issues that contract administrators must be familiar with and address, and the records that contractors will require in pursuing additional payment and/or time claims.

Finally, it advises that before embarking on lengthy and expensive arbitration or litigation procedures that they obtain legal and independent expert advice. The independent expert advice can include an independent project claims review (or “health” or “sanity” checks as they are sometimes called) to assist contractors in maximising their profit and minimising their risks. Read More →

Independent Claims Review

In the article we describe the almost unique manner in which contractors do business, by estimating future costs often years into the distance but knowing from the start of a contact, what their income will be, subject only to changes made by the Employer.

Compare this procedure with most other industries that know what their costs are but can only estimate their future income. Compounding the uncertainties for contractors is that they are heavily reliant upon subcontractors and suppliers outside of their direct control.

When contractors run into fiscal difficulties brought about by changes or events often outside of their direct control that increases costs without concomitant increase in income, they are forced to put together claims to increase the contract value and thereby reduce or mitigate their potential losses.

Some of the claims that we have seen are often badly structured and lack adequate support and evidence of entitlement. As a consequence, they are rejected by the Employers representatives. Read More →

Turnover is Vanity, Profit is Sanity, but Cash is King for your Business

Turnover, profitability and liquidity are all functions of and rely upon cash flowing into an entity exceeding cash flowing out. This article examines the preparation of cash flow projections, payment methods and the challenge construction contractors face in endeavouring to maintain a positive cash position. It examines how a preliminary cash flow forecast might be prepared and updated to keep abreast of the effect of the uncertainties involved in any construction project. Read More →

Disruption Claims – The Art of the Possible

The issue of disruption claims is in our collective experience widely misunderstood and often badly evaluated, prepared and presented.

Recently published in Construction Law Journal, this article provides advice on a way to establish quantum values for disruption claims or loss of productivity claims on construction projects.
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How to save money in Disputes & Arbitration

Anyone who has experience of construction disputes or arbitrations will know that they can be expensive; time consuming; with uncertain results based on a lack of understanding of the construction processes.

Published in Construction Law this advice discusses how contractors and consultants can minimise disputes and those costs by simply following the contract from the outset. The keys to success are; timely notices, clarity of information and reasonableness. In reality, it is no more than applying the contract in a timely manner and seeking solutions to problems, actual and foreseen, as opposed to leaving everything to the end.

It is no more than common sense but alas not always common practice. Read More →

The Beginning of the End or the End of the Beginning?

It appears that Governments are slowly releasing the lockdown imposed upon its populations in an effort to contain the Coronavirus outbreaks. In England and elsewhere in Europe, restrictions on movements of people are easing. However, in other parts of the Read More →

Drastic effects of the Covid 19 virus on our industry

For obvious reasons at this time, some of our Contractor clients and friends are experiencing severe problems on their contracts. We have provided to the industry a summary advisory leaflet that you may have read titled “The real and present Read More →

Truth is rarely pure, and never simple

In this second part of his two part article on the Importance of being Earnest written for Construction Law, Iain Wishart proffers his opinion on what he perceives to be the gradual erosion of independence in experts. He also provides advice to contractors and employers as to what they ought to do to avoid disputes; his experience of and benefits of contractor input into the design processes; and finally an unusual (and highly successful) use of independent experts. Read More →

Record, review, respond and react

Following our recent article on the Real and Present danger facing the Construction industry, Construction Law published a version under the title “Covid-19 advice: Record, review, respond and react” in their recent Covid-19 Newsletter. Read More →

The importance of being Earnest

The first part of a two part article recently published in Construction Law. It concerns the need and obligation of the parties involved in construction projects, to be just that, sincere and earnest in their desire to make the project a success. Read More →