Patrick Waterhouse and Kai von Pahlen will be delivering 5 days of training in law and contracts in Bristol next March.  The course will prepare you for the Institution of Civil Engineers’ (ICE) law and contract examinations.  Held at the offices of leading law firm VWV in Bristol, the training will follow the ICE’s syllabus for its Certificate in Law & Contract Management. Full details and the link to the bookings site are here – https://www.vwv.co.uk/index.php?option=com_rseventspro&layout=show&id=975:ice-approved-course-in-law-and-contract-management

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Patrick Waterhouse will be speaking alongside Daniel Silberstein (Hawkswell Kilvington), Luke Wygas (4 Pump Court) and Tom Francis of host company Decipher Consulting at this event in Leeds. In 2017 the latest edition of the NEC suite of contracts was issued, with a minor update in January 2019. Described as ‘evolution not revolution’, it came with changes in terminology. There are also new approaches to risk registers and dispute resolution among the various updates. As we reach late 2019, many contracting authorities and employers are now procuring with NEC4. The law has also evolved. So what do you need to.

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Bowdon Consulting director Patrick Waterhouse has co-authored the new leading text on disputes in NEC Contracts.  Written with NEC Users’ Group Secretary Robert Gerrard and a foreword by renowned adjudicator Tony Bingham, the book looks at how to avoid disputes and, in the event that they can’t be avoided, how to resolve them. The book is published by ICE Publishing, the sister company of the NEC contracts organisation. Copies are now available for immediate despatch from the ICE Publishing website – https://www.icebookshop.com/Products/NEC4-Resolving-and-Avoiding-Disputes.aspx  

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Bowdon director Patrick Waterhouse will be addressing a meeting of construction adjudicators in South Africa on 14 February.  The event is organised by a joint initiative of the South Africa Institution of Civil Engineering and the Institution of Civil Engineers.  ICE-SA is the Adjudicator Nominating Body for NEC Contracts in South Africa. As a part of its initiative to promote the use of adjudication as an effective and efficient form of dispute resolution, ICE-SA has established detailed rules for admission as well as a comprehensive process for nominations where these are needed.  Patrick will be speaking on the challenges faced.

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Bowdon director Patrick Waterhouse will be speaking to the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) at Manchester University on 13 December. He will explain what’s new in the NEC4 suite of contracts and suggesting when they might need to be replaced. Full details are here and bookings can be made via the ICE website. https://www.ice.org.uk/events/nec4-whats-changed-and-when-will-we-need-nec5  

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Bowdon director Patrick Waterhouse will be addressing the Society of Construction Law in Manchester on 12 October, describing the dispute resolution provisions of the new NEC4 suite of contracts. Published in June this year the new suite contain revised provisions for dispute avoidance and dispute resolution.  Patrick will describe these and explain, based on his experience as an adjudicator and a mediator, how these are likely to work in practice. The meeting will be held at DLA Piper’s offices in Manchester. Further details and bookings are available here – https://www.scl.org.uk/participate/events/nec4-what-you-need-know-about-avoiding-resolving-disputes  

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The new NEC4 contracts were published recently and have already created a phenomenal amount of interest in the industry.  Here at Bowdon we helped NEC with the development of the new documents and are now well placed to advise on the new suite of contracts.  Bowdon director Patrick Waterhouse will be delivering two seminars to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy in London and Leeds next month where the new contracts will be explained.  The event has been developed to support practitioners understand the new complete NEC4 suite of standard construction and facilities management contracts in the public sector..

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        The new NEC4 suite promises much and at this stage promises are all we have in advance of seeing the new documents.  NEC has trailed the major changes and we will be looking at each of these over the next few days and weeks. The new NEC4 Design Build Operate (DBO) Contract is aimed at situations which require an “integrated whole life delivery solution”.  NEC has said that the “F” word won’t be used here in that this new contract is not designed to be used where the provision of finance sits alongside the wider engineering.

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NEC today announced the forthcoming publication of the 4th edition of NEC contracts, to be known as NEC4.  Publication is expected in June and Bowdon Consulting is already preparing for this development.  You can be sure that all of our training courses will reflect the new documents and that we will be ready to advise on all contractual issues.  Don’t worry if you don’t understand all of the jargon below, we can explain everything! Initial impressions of these changes are favourable, updating the suite that dates back to 2005 and also reflecting the needs of users.  The treated acceptance of.

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