It is now 10 years since the views of Sir Michael Latham were the catalyst for a seismic change in the treatment of disputes within the construction industry. Part 11 of the Housing Grants Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 – based on Latham’s two reports to the Department of the Environment (DoE) – came into effect in May 1998.
Its key elements were the introduction of both statutory adjudication, and of mechanisms for determining when – and how much – a party was entitled to be paid under a construction contract. Both were, in Latham’s view, much needed to redress the balance within the construction industry.
