One of the first major commercial contracts that I had to negotiate concerned a serviced apartment development at the top of Little Collins Street Melbourne.
Using Expert Determination to Resolve Building Disputes
We were acting for a property developer and the contractor was a household name in the building industry responsible for the construction of some very fine Melbourne tall towers.
The contract negotiations were very straightforward, as was the project. This is not surprising, for when you get two seasoned and sensible contracting parties that have done their due diligence on one another, things tend to bode well.
The dispute resolution clause, however, was very interesting and notwithstanding its inherent “intelligence” in terms of the way it was crafted, I have rarely since then sighted a similar provision. The dispute resolution provision was an expert determination clause.
Expert determination is a contractual provision that dictates that any dispute of any nature to do with the contract or the building works must be referred to expert determination. The contractual provision will provide that the decision once made is binding upon the parties.
The parties have the option of choosing the expert prior to signing the contract, in which case the expert will be someone well regarded by both. The expert is then contacted with the view to gaining his or consent to being appointed as the dispute circuit breaker.
An alternative is for the expert determination clause to provide that an expert can be nominated by a nominating body such as the Institute of Quantity Surveyors or the Bar. This method is fine but can delay things somewhat.
The provision will state that in circumstances where a dispute crystallises, either party can send a notice of the dispute to the expert, along with a copy of the notice to the other party to the contract. The contract will provide that the expert can then advise the parties in writing of a date and time to meet or provide written submissions on point. The expert will also have the power to ask for any other material germane to the dispute.
The contract will be phrased to give the expert more or less carte blanche in terms of the way by which he or she will wish to resolve the dispute, but ordinarily the provision will state that once the expert is provided with sufficient material, he or she will meet with and hear from the parties, deliberate and then hand down a written determination.
The provision will normally provide that the parties remunerate the expert on a 50/50 basis and that monies will be placed into a trust account in advance.
An expert determination clause is designed to fast track dispute resolution so there is an expectation that the expert will deliver a determination promptly. Another virtue of an expert determination clause is that the procedure can be invoked whilst the contract is still on foot, so the contract can progress and contractual relationships can remain intact. The clause can also provide that the determination can be binding, pending conclusion of the project whereupon it can be litigated or retried. Alternatively the clause can stipulate that the determination is binding, period.
By and large, expert determination is enforceable absent any evidence of the untoward. If a party were to try to overturn the determination in a court of law, the Court would be likely to find that the parties had entered into a contract in which they agreed that they would be bound by the expert’s determination, went in with eyes wide open and accordingly are bound to abide by the experts ruling.
The virtues
First and foremost, it’s fast.
It is contained and confidential, the parties can choose the circuit breaker – their own umpire as it were. So dirty linen, for want of better metaphor, is aired internally, dealt with and the parties then move on.
Commercial relationships can remain intact intact, and they may even be enhanced.
In the overall scheme of things, it’s cheap as the parties share the cost of expert deployment.
It comes as little surprise that the big end of town loves it, because the big end of town knows money, knows the value of relationship building and enhancement, knows the downtime that goes with third party judicialised dispute resolution, along with the deleterious effect it can have upon reputation and corporate brand.
The parties can design through their lawyers the expert determination clause. They can even consult with the proposed expert before entering into the contract and discuss the way he or she would like to see the dispute resolution procedure and the logistics of same work. The bespoke procedure can then be captured in the drafting of the provision.
It is also of the no-fault persuasion; even though one party may get a favourable determination and conversely the other an unfavourable ruling, it is not about the winning and the losing. Rather, it’s about the resolution of a misunderstanding in a professional and non-judgemental setting. The characterization of such an outcome in this way is a likely scenario because the parties choose the circuit breaker, so no doubt they trust and have faith in the expert’s capability; as us Kiwis say, they ensured that they choose an expert that had “mana.”
Expert determination for the sophisticated commercial concerns is a bit of a “no-brainer” for reasons that I have hopefully expounded and it is surprising that it hasn’t experienced greater uptake. Or maybe it has, but we haven’t heard about it because it’s been so successful and for the reasons mentioned above, it has stayed under the radar.
Lovegrove & Cotton Lawyers to the building industry
For thirty years, Lovegrove & Cotton have represented builders, building surveyors and building practitioners in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Queensland. Justin Cotton, Director, is a leading Australian construction lawyer and widely respected in the building fraternity as evidenced by his recent elevation to Chairperson of the HIA Industrial Relations and Legal Services Committee, and member of the Regional Executive Committee, for HIA Victorian Chapter. Lovegrove & Cotton can help practitioners resolve any type of building dispute and are preeminent in the area of building practitioner advocacy. If you wish to engage the firm, feel free to contact us via our website or by emailing enquiries@lclawyers.com.au.