Goodness knows it’s obvious. There are far, far too many standard form contract documents; worse, none – I repeat, none – are easy to understand. My living over many years, like that of many other folks, has thrived on arguments not only about what the confounded clause meant, but also whether the machinery laid down has been followed. I love it; I love it! Do you? Hmmm.

The job ran late (nothing new). The claim was for the late completion losses (nothing new)… each wanted squillions from the other party (nothing new). Each pointed to the contractual machinery and yelled “failure!” at each other. Familiar stuff, yes?

The part of the Appeal Court judgment that rings my bell, is where his lordship says: “The first point that DBS make is that there is no sufficient language of conditionality in clause 6.1. I disagree. Almost any sentence beginning with the word ‘if’ is conditional…