When construction disputes arise, it is quite common for a client to assert that the contractor has been paid too much. Sometimes the client is right. But how does he get his money back?
The familiar JCT valuation rules say that payments are to include the total value of work “properly executed”. Often the overvaluation claim will be based upon an allegation that the valuation wrongly included defective work, which by definition is not “properly executed”.
Record compensation of more than £250,000 has been recovered by law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse at the High Court on behalf of a widow whose husband died from mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining caused by exposure to asbestos.
On 16 February the arbitration and conciliation service Acas published its report into the facts surrounding the dispute at the Lindsey oil refinery, which saw workers striking in protest at the employment of Italian and Portuguese workers on a construction project.
