On Valentine’s Day 2006, the Right Honourable Alun Michael MP compared the construction industry to “a multi-dimensional marriage” in his keynote address to the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI’s) post-consultation conference on improving payment practices in the construction industry. Others were, I am sure, wondering if the conference was going to bear any similarities to the infamous Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929.
The Construction Act 1996 came into force to improve the bitter relationships and lack of trust between the industry’s contracting parties by introducing adjudication and payment provisions into written construction contracts. But did the Act – heralded as one of the most important pieces of legislation to hit the construction industry for decades – achieve its purpose?
