The Commercial Bar Association of Victoria Inc. A0120851O
The NSW Court of Appeal has clarified the limits of informality in payment schedules and emphasised the importance of identiying the reasons for the dispute with sufficient particularity to set the boundaries for any adjudication.
The Supreme Court of NSW has found that a statutory authority owed a tortious duty of care in providing information and advice to a developer and considered the evidence required to demonstrate that, but for the misstatement, the developer would have undertaken a more profitable development.
The Supreme Court has emphasised the primacy of the building contract in granting a right to make a claim for final payment and confirmed the requirement for an adjudicator to be satisfied as to the ‘value’ of the works, notwithstanding that alleged defects that were subsequently identified existed at the time of a previous adjudication.
In this recent decision the Court of Appeal considers builders’ duties under domestic building contracts to an undisclosed principal and owner, and the parties’ ability to limit the scope of the statutory warranties under the Domestic Building Contracts Act 1995 (Vic).
In this recent decision, the Court of Appeal held that deleted words appearing on the face of an executed contract may not be used to interpret a clause unless the clause in question (excluding the deleted words) is ambiguous. If it is, the deleted words may be used, only, to assist in choosing between alternative constructions.
In this recent decision, the Court of Appeal held that a mediation-based dispute resolution clause in a construction contract did not oust the jurisdiction of an adjudicator under Victorian security of payment legislation, and that an adjudicator is not bound by a valuation certified by a superintendent under a contract.