Opinion – Page 625

  • Comment

    Give them their due

    2002-11-29T00:00:00Z

    The Construction Act's payment provisions are there to promote certainty of payment: nothing should stop the payee from knowing where it stands on pay day

  • Comment

    Prescott under fire

    2002-11-29T00:00:00Z

    John Prescott has more to worry about right now than his deteriorating relationship with housebuilders (pages 24-25). Planning chaos is a political sideshow alongside the main drama of the firefighters' dispute and the threat – amid a London teachers' strike – of a new winter of discontent. But, although no ...

  • Comment

    Hansom

    2002-11-29T00:00:00Z

    This week, an Archigram architect drags out 1960s neckwear, check out the toilet where you can't be caught short, and tourists beware in Grosvenor Square

  • Comment

    Reflex reaction

    2002-11-29T00:00:00Z

    Critics of the public–private partnership dwell on fledgling problems, but these are nothing that can't be solved. Better that than no new schools or hospitals …

  • Comment

    An unprecedented future

    2002-11-29T00:00:00Z

    Much is said about our industry learning from its experiences, yet here we are throwing away a wealth of knowledge on points of law and principle

  • Comment

    Legalaid

    2002-11-29T00:00:00Z

    This month our free musketeers reach into the void of adjudication decisions, examine the effects of the aggregates levy on a contractor's tender, and warn of the dangers that lurk in agreeing to pay a percentage fee to a consultant

  • Comment

    Ten years later …

    2002-11-22T00:00:00Z

    Should you expect compensation if someone does you damage they should have foreseen? Of course. But what if it goes on for an unforeseeable length of time?

  • Comment

    Ways of making you talk

    2002-11-22T00:00:00Z

    It was always thought that a clause in a contract that says parties will mediate before they litigate wasn't that enforceable. After the following case, we know different

  • Comment

    Cleaning up the pensions mess

    2002-11-22T00:00:00Z

    A year after Building warned of construction's pensions time bomb, employers and staff alike are getting the jitters about the cost of retirement. Our annual Hays Montrose/Building careers survey reveals that more than half of readers are worried about pensions, and – as a result – expect to work beyond ...

  • Comment

    We're not the only ones

    2002-11-22T00:00:00Z

    Like construction, the pensions industry has failed to focus on what its customers need. It should take a leaf out of our book and indulge in some free-thinking

  • Comment

    Hansom

    2002-11-22T00:00:00Z

    This week, our espionage expert takes in the capital, uncovering some theatrics in Islington, a bloody battle in Soho and an American enclave in Mayfair

  • Comment

    The war of all against all

    2002-11-22T00:00:00Z

    The House of Lords has just given us key tests to decide who wins when members of a project team try to pin liability on each other

  • Comment

    Goodbye to all that

    2002-11-22T00:00:00Z

    After 20 years teaching craft skills, this lecturer has had enough. Here he explains how a debased system and useless students turned a fine job into his definition of hell

  • Comment

    In pursuit of the civil

    2002-11-15T00:00:00Z

    The pre-action protocol is supposedly turning solicitors into nice people. But in the absence of evidence that it's working, are there other ways of meeting its aims?

  • Comment

    A night on the tiles

    2002-11-15T00:00:00Z

    Practising flamenco late at night in the room above mine may be your idea of fun. But if it disturbs my sleep and I take you to court, it may hurt you in the castanets

  • Comment

    Endgame on the underground

    2002-11-15T00:00:00Z

    Is it nearly the end of the line for the part-privatisation of London's Tube? A year and a half after they were first chosen as the preferred bidders, the Metronet and Tube Lines consortiums were due to finalise their deals this month. But as passengers so often find, delays are ...

  • Comment

    Minority report

    2002-11-15T00:00:00Z

    Weighty reports are all very well, but they're not the best way to get firms to reach out to women and ethnic minorities. We need positive recruitment practices

  • Comment

    Hansom

    2002-11-15T00:00:00Z

    Come with us on a magical journey to hear indescribable Swedish music, gratuitously insult the French and visit some very special houses in Darlington

  • Comment

    What's wrong with simple?

    2002-11-15T00:00:00Z

    The Contracts (Right of Third Parties) Act makes collateral warranties and their bureaucratic complications redundant. Yet some lawyers seem reluctant to see them go

  • Comment

    The great unknown

    2002-11-15T00:00:00Z

    Not knowing the law used to be no excuse for anything. But now the courts are telling us that it can be a helpful point to raise in a contractual dispute