One of the most combative industries world-wide is the building and engineering industry. Many legal systems have dedicated construction law courts and others have enacted legislation designed to specifically manage construction industry disputes. In Australia alone, it is estimated the construction industry could save AU$7 billion through better stakeholder and contract management processes that minimise or eliminate avoidable disputes.
Research in reducing theses excessive costs has resulted in the publication of The Guide to Leading Practice for Dispute Avoidance and Resolution. The Guide recommends management strategies to avoid contractual disputes between clients, contractors and other stakeholders, and where disputes cannot be avoided, to manage disputes effectively. Whilst this research was developed by the Australian building and construction industry it has a much wider application and is recommended reading for any manger involved in establishing or overseeing a major project.
The Guide was developed by the CRC for Construction Innovation prior to its closure in 2009. To achieve a balanced view, the CRC-CI engaged with a cross section of organisations in the built environment industry supply chain including the Association of Consulting Engineers Australia, Australian Constructors Association, Australian Procurement and Construction Council, Civil Contractors Federation, Queensland Dept. Transport and Main Roads and Main Roads Western Australia in the work leading to this report.
The CRC for Construction Innovation completed its work on the 31st December 2009 and has closed down. To keep these valuable reports in circulation we have created a repository on the Mosaic web site. The following publications and documents are available to download from the ‘Legal Papers section of the Mosaic site:
– Guide to Leading Practice for Dispute Avoidance and Resolution
– Guide to Leading Practice for Dispute Avoidance and Resolution: An overview
– Dispute Avoidance and Resolution (literature review)
– Causal Ascription of Disputes (report)
– Strategies for Dispute Avoidance (report)
– An exploratory study of project dispute pathogens (journal article)
– Causal Modelling of Construction Disputes (refereed conference paper)
Pat Weaver
Lynda Bourne
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