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Trends in Construction Dispute Resolution Essay

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Trends in construction dispute resolution
Introduction

10% of the UK’s gross national product is accounted for by construction activity, meaning there is a lot of dispute resolution and it comes in a wide variety of flavours. 35 years ago ‘alternative dispute resolution’ did not exists (Gaitskell states 27 years, but paper was done in 2005…), and the phrase ‘dispute resolution’ was rarely used. The only forms of dispute resolution regularly employed were court litigation and arbitration. On isolated occasions there might be an expert determination. These are all final determinations, subject only to appeals in confined circumstances.
In the last 10/18 years a range of new dispute resolution procedures has become available …show more content…

TCC is markedly different, a trial date can be set when parties are ready for it – usually in a matter of months. TCC judges lists are no longer full and be available to act as arbitrators if the parties so chose. A recently published leaflet on the TCC court says that TCC judges can be appointed as an arbitrator and the fees are highly competitive.
Statics displaying proceedings in the TCC over a 10 year period dropped from 1,778 in 1995, to only 390 cases in 2004, a drop in 78%. However, these statistics are not as dramatic as they sound, as many trials in 1995 would not come to court these days.
All this changed due to the introduction of the Woolf Reforms, embodied in the 1998 Civil Procedures Rules (CPR) which came into force on the 26th April 1999. A consequence of this is litigants must fulfil numerous requirements of protocols involving alerting the other party of the nature of one’s case prior to commencing proceedings. This weeds out disputes that previously a decade ago would not have intended to go to a trial.
CPR had an effect across the court system, proceedings dropped dramatically. Within two years of the reform, civil litigation overall was down by 37%. Various civil court cost issues have made courts less attractive as the CPR introduced a summary of costs to simplify the costs

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