International Construction Law Review
CORRESPONDENTS’ REPORTS: ENGLAND AND WALES
JENNIFER BARRETT, ANN LEVIN AND MARTIN BRIDGEWATER
Herbert Smith, London
THE ENGINEER HAS LEFT THE BUILDING: THE NEW ICE APPROACH TO DISPUTE RESOLUTION
Summary
This article examines the ICE’s recent decision to dispense with the engineer’s decision as part of its clause 66 dispute resolution procedure in favour of adjudication, and contrasts this approach with the trend for using dispute boards favoured by FIDIC and the ICC.
Introduction
The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE)1
has recently updated the dispute resolution procedures in its long-established Conditions of Contract. The ICE recommends that the new provisions be incorporated into all contracts let after 1 July 2004.
As the ICE’s website press release explains, the revised family of contracts aims to help opposing parties within the construction industry settle their contractual differences before embarking on costly dispute resolution proceedings.2
To this end, the contractual dispute resolution procedure for ICE Conditions of Contract (clause 66) now replaces the reference in the previous version of clause 66 to an engineer’s decision with a series of alternative dispute avoidance or “problem-solving measures”.3
An example is the requirement for one party to give the other an advance warning of any matter which, if not resolved, could develop into a dispute. This article focuses on the removal of the engineer’s decision as the first step in the dispute resolution procedure, which has historically been a key feature of the ICE dispute resolution process.
1 In conjunction with the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACE) and the Civil Engineering Contractors’ Association (CECA).
3 The new clause 66 is available to download from: www.ice.org.uk/law
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