Page 25 - Yearbook 2020

CONSTRUCTION
In conversation with John Starr
When we asked Construction Consultant, John Starr, what had the biggest impact on the construction industry in 2020 the answer was, rst and foremost, COVID-19. John explained, “Whilst many of the Government’s lockdown measures allowed construction workers to keep working in an effort to continue building, major delays due to supply chain and staf ng issues still caused disruption. Successfully completing projects on time and to budget quickly became an impossibility across the industry.”
So, what exactly were the rami cations of this for clients? According to John, “The question on many people’s lips in the face of these disruptions was, who would have to foot the loss for delays to completion and additional costs incurred to make it happen? Turning to a force majeure clause which would stipulate liability to a particular party was the starting point for many. However, this will be dif cult if not impossible to argue going forward as, now COVID-19 is a known problem, all parties will be expected to account
for it when agreeing to time and cost provisions.”
This will undoubtedly make the drafting of construction contracts going forward very interesting, John explains: “Drafting will have to account for more bespoke provisions, such as when and in what circumstances will the Contractor be entitled to extensions, additional money or both. Employers will undoubtedly push back on any kind of associated creative price adjustment and so, from the Contractor’s perspective, some resilience and creativity will be needed to ensure there is exibility on costs. This could be as simple as pricing for risks in the contract sums and offering discounts if the worst case scenario doesn’t materialise.”
What’s clear is that greater commercial creativity combined with careful contract drafting will be more essential than ever in the wake of 2020.
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