It is generally recognized that the U.K. construction industry is associated with low profit, delay in payments, cash flow concerns,\ud short-term relationships compared with other industries, and high levels of business failure. In particular, claims and disputes have proliferated\ud in the industry largely due to unfair payment practices. Therefore, to encourage a swifter and more economic method of resolving\ud construction disputes by way of adjudication, the U.K. Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 (HGCRA) came into force\ud on October 1st, 2011in England andWales, and November 1st, 2011 in Scotland. This study presents the HGCRA 1996 Act—highlighting its\ud strengths and weaknesses—along with the new 2009 Construction Act. The study additionally presents awareness of the new Act, key\ud reasons for amending the HGCRA 1996 Act, and the impact of key changes in the Act on the dispute resolution process. The paper concludes\ud that the new Act is perceived as being more effective at improving cash flow in the construction supply chain and is expected to encourage\ud parties to resolve disputes by adjudication—but it will have to overcome the historical fact that integration of such proposed changes in\ud construction may be a complex issue

2006),"Disputing the existence of a dispute as a strategy for avoiding construction adjudication", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. 13 Iss 4 pp. 380-395 http:// dx.If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The UK construction industry has been at the forefront of finding efficient, cost-effective and fair methods of resolving disputes. Therefore, to ensure the 1996 Act is more effective in achieving its intended objective, the new Act came into force on the 1 October 2011 in England and Wales, and 1 November 2011 in Scotland. The purpose of this paper is to explore one of the most important amendments in the new Act, the abolition of the "contract in writing" rule. The extent to which the UK industry is aware of the likely implications of the abolition of the "contracts in writing" rule in the new Act on the adjudication has not been empirically explored -which is the core raison d'être of this paper. Design/methodology/approach -A web-based, online questionnaire survey method was employed to collect data. Descriptive analysis was used to analyse the data obtained from the 102 completed and usable questionnaires for inference and conclusion. This research employed t-tests to compare means of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large organisations. Findings -The findings suggests that the UK construction industry is well aware of the abolition of the "contracts in writing" rule in the new Act and the industry perception is that it is good for their business. The survey revealed that the amended rule in the new Act would significantly increase number of adjudications, number of hearings before the adjudicator, assessment of witness evidence, costs of the adjudication process, and timescale of an adjudication process. The three most important challenges to the adjudication process with the amended rule in the new Act include: assessment of wholly oral or partly oral contract terms that were agreed, availability of evidence, and availability of information. There are no significant statistical variations between the responses of the SMEs and large organisations. Practical implications -The paper concludes that the new Act will have significant impact on the UK adjudication. The...

A fundamental aspect of the UK Programme of Decommissioning and Waste Management is the desire of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to achieve more for less. This requires the use of 'incentives' and target-cost arrangements. This paper examines the role and use of the NEC3 Engineering and Construction Contract and the Institution of Chemical Engineers Burgundy-Book conditions of contract. Questions are now arising about how incentives-based contracts/target-cost contracts actually work in practice. How do they provide an incentive and allocate the risk of cost/time overrun? What are the problems that are leading to disputes? These questions are addressed, as well as exploring the specific areas that contracting parties should now consider before signing up to an incentives-based or target-cost contract. The paper concludes by examining the desire in the industry to use 'hybrid contracts' that incorporate elements of fixed price, or longer-term target plus fee (for workstreams or sites where analysis of risks is required or where work needs to be better understood and characterised).

The UK’s ‘Construction Act’ is now well into the formal process of change. The Bill completed its House of Lords stages on 29 April 2009 and was presented in the House of Commons on 30 April and debated at second reading on 1 June 2009. The bill was sent to a public bill committee that completed its consideration on 18 June 2009. Fundamental change will be visited upon the construction industry. The irresistible question is whether the bill’s proposed amendments are sufficiently thorough or whether they still leave scope for creative legal arguments and/or disputes. This paper seeks to answer these questions. The proposed changes are explained together with a review of those issues where change is not (currently) contemplated and/or where disputes are likely.

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