Legal issues with JCT contracts

There are an enormous number of cases concerning construction contracts and a few useful cases are mentioned below.

Balfour Beatty Regional Construction Limited v Grove Developments Limited [2016]

Shows the courts are reluctant to step in when there is a drafting slip, when amending the standard form contract.

Birse Construction Ltd v St David Ltd [1999]

The courts have hinted that the collaborative nature of partnering charters will be taken into consideration when considering the express obligations in a construction contract.

Blue Circle Industries v Holland Dredging (1987) 37 BLR 40

The employer cannot instruct variations that are entirely different to the subject matter of the contract. It is, therefore, essential that the original scope of the work is clear and included in the original contract documents.

Great Eastern Hotel Co Ltd v John Laing Co Ltd [2005] CILL 2217 TCC

Suggests that a management contractor has fundamental obligations to manage, administer and coordinate the works of the trade contractors and not all project risk lies with the employer.

C.G.A. Brown v Carr and Another [2006]

A contractor who has not been provided with some of the project design and provides it himself is likely to carry the liability for this design.

Henry Boot Construction Ltd v Alstom Combined Cycles Ltd, contract administrator 2000

This case confirms that the rates and prices in a re-measurement contract are to be used not matter how unfavourable they are to one of the parties.

Multiplex Construction (UK) Ltd v Honeywell Control Systems Ltd (No. 2) [2007] EWHC 447 (TCC)

This case suggests that condition precedent clauses (such as those in the NEC3 ECC) are enforceable in the UK and that such clauses 'serve a valuable purpose'. Condition precedent clauses are unpopular with contractors but are likely to become more common in the UK.

Williams v Fitzmaurice (1858) 157 ER 709

The ‘inclusive price principle’. This case indicates that even if not expressly stated in the contract, a contractor will normally be held to have included in its price everything necessary to achieve the stated objective of the contract.