Construction Project Delivery Law (LAWS90207)

This subject offers an overview of the construction law curriculum, satisfying the pre-requisites for students to pursue further subjects in the construction law program.

It puts key current issues in construction project delivery into their broader context, including contracting and risk allocation modes, regulatory reforms, claims and remedies. The subject examines these issues in the context of the entire project life cycle. A significant focus is upon how construction law in all its forms – common law, statutory, contracts or otherwise – can be sensibly reformed by project parties and their lawyers via collaborative project planning and execution.

Principal topics include:

• Overview of the common law and statutory regimes for construction contracting
• Understanding the drivers of project stress and failure, including analysis of stakeholders, the broader approvals and social context in which projects are delivered and holistic project risk allocation and management in the context of complex current projects
• Contracting: delivery modes, role of standard forms
• Role and liability of superintendents
• Sub-contracts
• Variations
• Quality and defects
• Latent conditions
• Time, programming and liquidated damages
• Contractual mechanisms for payment and security of payment legislation
• Security for performance
• Current approaches to dispute management in major project delivery, including contemporary and innovative approaches to dispute management and avoidance in major projects