Timber iQ December 2018 - January 2019 // Issue: 41 | Page 12

ASSOCIATIONS
No easy path to peace on
a building project
When disputes arise on a building project, despite proper
contractual procedures, what are the options to resolve them?
By Uwe Putlitz, CEO of the Joint Building Contracts Committee (JBCC)
Depending on the nature of a project, and its location, any or all the techniques in Standard Form Contracts may be employed to
resolve disputes.
R
egardless of the Standard Form Contract, all the
contracts include dispute resolution options.
Implementation of these procedures to a large extent
involves the parties at war consulting trained outsiders to
avoid involvement of the legal profession unless absolutely
necessary. Let’s look at the trained outsiders who could be
engaged to create settlement.
The first and best option is for the parties to share what
could end up being quite a few cups of coffee to amicably
discuss the issues and explore possible solutions
acceptable to both. Obviously, this is the fastest and most
cost-effective solution and all information remains
confidential. But, sadly, it’s probably the least likely way
employed in dispute dilemmas in the world we live
in today.
10 DECEMBER 2018 / JANUARY 2019 //
So, if coffee is not on the menu, the next step could be to
move on to mediation and hire an outsider to mediate the
matter under dispute. Mediation has gained support in the
building and construction industry in most countries,
including South Africa. But it is important that the mediator
should be trained to deal with people to fully extract and
fully understand the crux of a problem to guide the parties
to possible solutions.
The parties talking to one another could also agree to
resolve the matter by asking the mediator – who has been
privy to all relevant information – to suggest a non-binding
solution to the parties, commonly referred to as ‘expert
determination’.
If mediation does not work, there’s adjudication, a
process that evolved in the 1980s in England to find a
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