Background
The construction industry has the unenviable distinction of having generated vast amounts of complicated case law and the last two generations of law students have been perplexed by cases such as Anns v Merton LBC [1978] and Murphy v Brentwood BC [1991]. But in May 1998, the legal landscape of the industry changed with the enactment of the adjudication provisions in the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 (colloquially known as the ‘Construction Act’). Adjudication under the Construction Act is now established as the industry’s preferred method of resolving its disputes, something which may have implications for future generations of law students.
