Hong Kong – Practical Means and Approaches for Engineers to Avoid and Resolve Contractual Disputes

This CPD seminar will cover the following:

Synopsis

The construction industry may arguably be one of the most conflict-prone and litigation-prone industries.

This is perhaps due to the large contract sums and cut-throat competitions during tender in which contractors may have to commit to extremely low tender prices and sometimes below cost to win or to “buy” the projects with the mere hope of bagging some “windfall” returns to recuperate some tender losses.

Another possible reason leading to the dispute-prone characteristic of construction industry may be due to the insufficient time allocated to consultants, engineers and architects to prepare and complete their tender designs and tender documents thereby resulting in certain deficiencies in the tender documents which transpire into contractual grounds for claims. Sometimes, tender documents are prepared when the architect’s or the engineer’s designs are only 60% to 80% complete.

Under these circumstances, how may an engineer use practical means to avoid and/or resolve contractual disputes? What can be done to preserve a harmonious working relationship with the various stakeholders in a construction project? What can be done to amicably resolve construction disputes? When all practical measures to resolve disputes have been exhausted, what adversarial dispute resolution protocols are available to resolve the disputes?

The Hong Kong Government has been promoting a “partnering” type of construction contract known as the New Engineering Contract (NEC) since mid-2000. What is the NEC contract? Why is it called “New” engineering contract? Why is it widely adopted in Hong Kong, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand?

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