CIOB meaning

In this issue: Standard form contracts Building safety Arbitration Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content Construction trackers Standard form contracts A quick guide to the Employer’s power to instruct under the JCT Design & Build Contract Employers’ rights to issue instructions under the JCT suite are frequently assumed rather than scrutinised. This overview, authored by James Ladner, legal director, and Fiona Fingland, associate, at Pinsent Masons, examines the foundations and breadth of the Employer’s ability to instruct within the JCT Design and Build Contract, the constraints on that ability, including in relation to variations after practical completion, and the ramifications where parties fail to manage instructions in accordance with the contract’s terms. See News Analysis: A quick guide to the Employer’s power to instruct under the JCT Design & Build Contract. Building safety The Building Safety Levy (England) Regulations—a quick guide On 10 July 2025, the government presented the draft Building...

In this issue: COP30 Key developments Air emissions and climate change Energy for environmental lawyers Environmental assessment Environmental information Environmental permits and consents ESG and sustainability Hazardous substances and chemicals Marine Nature, biodiversity and habitat conservation Waste Water, flooding and drainage LexTalk®Environment: a Lexis®Nexis community Daily and weekly news alerts New and updated content COP30 COP30’s Global ‘Collective Effort’—Fragments of progress By the Saturday morning when COP30 in Brazil should have concluded, negotiators secured an accord: ‘Global Mutirão: Uniting humanity in a global mobilisation against climate change’. Drawn from the Tupi-Guarani language, ‘Global Mutirão’ echoed a summit presented as one of action and delivery. The resulting text deliberately preserved the multilateral process and offered glimmers of progress, yet avoided any explicit mention of fossil fuels or of forests—despite the meeting taking place in the Amazon. This piece highlights the principal outcomes from COP30. Written by Estelle Dehon...

News Analysis: Construction law—a look at 2025 so far and ahead to the end of the year In June 2025, we released News Analysis: Construction law—a look at 2025 so far and ahead to the end of the year, where we examined the principal construction law trends that had arisen since January. In this subsequent piece, we reflect on the headlines, milestones and shifts from the closing months of 2025, and flag what we anticipate for 2026. The latter part of 2025 remained energetic. Planning and regulatory reform stayed centre stage as the government pressed on with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, together with broader plans to cut delays and accelerate delivery of housing and infrastructure schemes. Concurrent developments in building safety, product oversight and standard form contracts contributed to a period of swift change. The courts likewise issued a sequence of judgments addressing fundamental contractual doctrines, spanning contract formation and variation, conditions precedent, collateral warranties, and the assessment of damages both in contract and under the Defective Premises...

Claims by contractors for time and/or money Requests from contractors seeking additional time and/or payment are commonplace on construction projects. A time claim seeks an extension of time (EoT) to complete the works (or achieve a contractual milestone) where a delay event has occurred, whereas a money claim typically pursues reimbursement of extra loss and/or expense incurred by the contractor due to delay or disruption to the works. Such a claim might likewise be brought by a sub-contractor under a sub-contract. These claims are usually founded on an express contractual entitlement—ie the contract specifies situations in which the contractor is entitled to time and/or money—and they are advanced and decided in accordance with the contract terms. They do not, of themselves, involve a breach of contract or require there to be a dispute between the parties, although they may ultimately give rise to one. This Practice Note outlines the key issues to consider in relation to time and money claims. Many of these points are relevant even...

Working out who controls the float on a construction project is often thorny (and controversial), and it regularly features in disputes about a contractor’s right to an extension of time in practice. This Practice Note explores what float means, which party benefits from it, the treatment of float under the Society of Construction Law Delay and Disruption Protocol (SCL Protocol), together with the position regarding float within the JCT, NEC, FIDIC and CIOB standard form contracts. What is the float? Float is the surplus time, over and above the period the contractor truly requires, that is usually appended to the end of its construction programme. Put another way, it is the interval between the contractor’s expected actual completion and the date by which it is obliged under the contract to complete. The Society of Construction Law Delay and Disruption Protocol (SCL Protocol) characterises float as the time available to an activity in excess of its planned duration (p 64). It is normal for a contractor to build some...

Infrastructure spans an extensive spectrum of assets, covering everything from schools, hospitals, highways and rail routes to wind power, electricity, waste and water schemes, as well as oil and gas installations, pipelines and processing facilities. Contractors are increasingly sharpening specialist skills and delivering infrastructure schemes across borders. Consequently, the construction contract forms in play are becoming more internationally standardised. Although infrastructure contracts share core clauses, no single template suits every scheme. Any template must be adapted to reflect the project’s particular issues and subject matter, the parties’ risk allocation, and to comply with the governing law of the contract and the project’s location. In some cases, a bespoke infrastructure construction contract is a better choice than a heavily amended standard form. Choice of contract The contract model adopted for an infrastructure build will depend on the: procurement of the works, for example: under a single construction agreement with one contractor taking single-point responsibility for delivery, such as an Engineering...