Public Works Contracts Conference 2019

Working with Mulcahy McDonagh & Partners (MMP) since 2000, he has served on many professional committees within the Construction Industry, and is Chairperson of the Society of Chartered Surveyors’ Dispute Resolutions Committee as well as Vice Chairman of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Dispute Resolutions Standing Committee. He is currently on the panel of conciliators/arbitrators/adjudicators for the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, the CIF and Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, is a member of the Ministers Panel of Adjudicators, and is an accomplished author.

He has acted as solicitor and advocate in some of the largest construction arbitrations held in the State. He has been involved in the drafting of a number of contracts including a version of the Public Works Contract for use in the private sector and the CIF Form of Domestic Sub-Contract for use with the Public Works Contract. He is Chairman of the Law Society ADR Committee and also sits on the Engineers Ireland equivalent committee. He is a chartered arbitrator, accredited mediator and an author.

He is a member of:
Panel of Adjudicators appointed by the Minister under section 8 of the Construction Contracts Act 2013.
Engineer’s Ireland Arbitrators Panels of Arbitrators and Conciliators
Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland Panels of Adjudicators; Arbitrators/Experts; and Conciliators/Mediators
Construction Industry Federation National Contractual Dispute Services Panel.

He was commissioned by the Department of Finance to draft the Public Works Contracts in 2007.  He has specialised in construction law in Ireland, the UK and the US for 30 years, and been involved in many of the largest and most complex projects undertaken in Ireland from procurement to contract negotiation and drafting to strategic mid-stream advice to dispute resolution. His clients include public authorities, private owners, sponsors, funders, contractors, and designers. He represents clients in arbitration and litigation of (typically high value) disputes arising from construction and infrastructure projects and procurement, and in mediation, conciliation, adjudication and expert determination. He is a member of the Engineers Ireland panel of conciliators.

Robert has ten years’ experience in making and assessing construction claims, during the contractual process, and as part of adjudication, conciliation and arbitration. Robert advises a wide range of clients across a variety of business and industry sectors including infrastructure, development, retail, pharmaceutical and food and beverage. Robert’s also advises on non-contentious construction issues and leads the legal input on significant construction projects.

Hugh has considerable experience in a broad range of practice areas including projects and construction, energy & natural resources, Energy Performance Contracting, Local Energy Supply Contracts, procurement and alternative dispute resolution. Hugh advises clients on the drafting, settling and procuring of the required contractual documentation on a wide range of complex, large-scale mixed use projects in Ireland both in the public and private sectors. He is also heavily involved in the areas of energy performance contracts and local energy supply contracts and regularly advises clients on the procurement, negotiation, drafting and settlement of such contracts. Hugh has experience of advising a broad range of clients across both public and private sectors in industries such as construction, healthcare, facilities management, hospitality and project management to name but a few.

She advises contracting authorities, employers, contractors, sub-contractors and consultants and has experience advising across a range of sectors and a variety of standard form contracts (including PWC, NEC, JCT, FIDIC and RIAI). She has also advised in relation to both High Court and Commercial Court proceedings and has been involved in a number of successful multi-party mediations.

Chris’ career has always been a combination of front end contract negotiation and back end dispute resolution. Chris has been involved in law suits or arbitrations in 15 countries. Chris’ most recent role has been as Senior Legal Counsel–UK & Ireland with AECOM, a global engineering firm of some 85,000 employees wiht operations in 141 countries.  In his 6 years at AECOM, Chris had a stint as Chief Claims Counsel for EMEA.  Prior to AECOM, Chris was a partner at Eversheds Sutherland in the Projects group for 5 years after nearly 6 years at McCann FitzGerald in its construction department. Chris has lectured extensively on construction and contract law including delivering some of the original training to local authorities on the Public Works Contracts when they were first rolled out into the market in 2006 and 2007. 

He has worked for both Contractors and Employers in equal measure with experience of both public and private sector projects carried out under the full range of procurement routes. He holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Construction Law and Administration and a Masters’ Degree (MSc) with Distinction in Construction Law and Practice. Mark is a Director of Staveley and Partners and whilst he provides Cost management and Estimating consultancy, Contractual Advice and Risk Management and Quantification, the bulk of his practice concerns the provision of commercial and contractual advice and expert witness services to public and private sector Clients involved in contract administration, disputes avoidance and resolution.