Proposed National Infrastructure Bank for US

February 5, 2010

President Obama has proposed the creation of a US $4B “national-infrastructure fund” in an effort to get away from “the federal government’s traditional approach of giving grants to specific states and localities for infrastructure spending”: WSJ. At least one well-known American construction attorney, John Ahlers, thinks that the fund is a good idea, providing of [...]

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A body of law to call our own in the age of globalization

February 1, 2010

A little off the topic of construction law. A recent post by Simon Chester at slaw.ca discusses Professor Peter McCormick’s work – specifically his book, Supreme at Last: The Evolution of the Supreme Court of Canada – on the sources of authority cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in their decisions: http://www.slaw.ca/2010/01/27/65-years-of-change-in-what-the-supreme-court-cites/.

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Mediation is good business

December 1, 2009

American construction lawyer Christopher Hill’s latest thoughts have been on the effectiveness of mediation. He gives three good reasons why, in his opinion, mediation works: It’s cheaper than litigation, Mediated outcomes can be far more flexible than those possible at trial, and The parties retain ultimate decision-making control, instead of giving it up to the [...]

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Put the bucket down

November 5, 2009

Keeping a handle on workplace practices is rarely on top of the priority list for owners and managers of small and medium-sized companies – there are too many other core tasks to stay on top of in the day-to-day running of the business. Managers at larger companies have the luxury of hiring a staffer to [...]

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Bid Bombing

October 13, 2009

I was reading through my weekly list of construction law blogs when I noticed this post about “bid bombing.” The post draws attention to a recent article in Engineering News Record. So-called bid bombs are bids that come in substantially lower than other competing bids. In these situations the other competing bids might be hovering [...]

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Infinity Steel Inc. v. B & C Steel Erectors Inc.

September 17, 2009

Why contractors and subcontractors should put agreements in writing There are lots of reasons why it’s important to be clear about the details of an agreement, especially if it’s with a person or company that you don’t regularly deal with. And Infinity Steel Inc. v. B & C Steel Erectors Inc., 2009 BCSC 1053 is [...]

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Construction Law Terms and Definitions

August 24, 2009

After receiving some feedback about my first case comments, I realized that for anyone without legal training, even contractors who deal with legal documents on a daily basis, some common legal terms might be foreign in meaning. The obvious solution was to create a quick list of contract and construction law terms and definitions. The [...]

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Privilege Clauses and Dalcon Enterprises

August 13, 2009

I recently commented on Russell (Township) v. Dalcon Enterprises Inc., [2009] O.J. No. 2560 (Ont. S.C.J.) (“Dalcon“), and I indicated that the owner township had every right to exercise a contractual provision giving it “discretion” to award the contract to a bidder other than the lowest bidder. And it did. But I should mention that [...]

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Law Blogs

August 6, 2009

Several of the law blogs that I’ve posted links to on my links page are American in origin, especially those law blogs specifically focused on construction law. This a partly because the legal community in the U.S. is necessarily larger than that in Canada, and it might make more sense for a lawyer there to [...]

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Russell (Township) v. Dalcon Enterprises Inc.

July 31, 2009

Public sector owners like federal and provincial departments and large municpalities often have no qualms about throwing their weight around in the event of a contractual dispute. For that matter even smaller municipalities often have no reservations about getting into a racket with a contractor depending on the collective personality of their public officials. But, [...]

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