Newsletter European Society of Construction Law

Here we are in September and at this time of year our minds would normally turn to the ESCL Annual Congress and the General Assembly that would follow it. I for one had been looking forward to visiting Sofia and hope that we will all be able to meet there next October. Sadly, this year, in this strangest of years, we will not be seeing each other in person. However, for the Presidents there will still be a General Assembly as life must go on and we must prepare for the future. So we will still be having our General Assembly, via Zoom this year, and we will be electing a new Council to organise the coming year. We will also be electing a new chair of the ESCL as my time has finally come to step down. I will be standing to stay on the Council and help out but the time has come for me to hand over to other with new ideas to take our beloved society forward. I hope to see as many of you as possible at the GA on 10 October and then plan to come to Sofia to say goodbye in person.

Now I would like to say a short thank you to Roberto and the Italian Society for their wonderful series of webinars, details of the next ones are in this newsletter. The webinars have been fantastically well attended and incredibly informative and I hope you have all enjoyed them as much as I have. Thank you Roberto.

I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on 10 October.

Best wishes

Richard Bailey
ESCL chair

All the webinars are moderated by Roberto Panetta, General Secretary of the Italian Society of Construction Law.

Please note that there has been a change of date and that a new seminar has been organized. In the next weeks the following ESCL Summer Webinars will take place:

23 September 2020
6.30-7.30 PM CET
Speaker: Arent Van Wassenaer (Director of the Faithful Goose B.V., the Netherlands)
Topic: Partnering in Construction Projects

30 September 2020
6.30-7.30 PM CET
Speaker: Marcello Viglino (Engineer, Contract Management Salini Impregilo S.p.A., member of the Italian Society of Construction Law)
Topic: Enforcement of DB decisions

7 October 2020 (NEW DATE!)
6.30-7.30 PM CET
Speaker: Bastian Fuchs (Honorary Professor of German and International Construction Law at the University of the Bundeswehr München, Germany)
Topic: The use and legal aspects of BIM in the international arena

14 October 2020 (NEW!)
6.30-7.30 PM CET
Speaker: Virginie Colaiuta (Partner of the London office of the Italian law firm LMS Legal LLP and a Visiting Fellow of King’s College, London)
Topic: Risk Relating to Ground Conditions under Civil Law and Common Law

How to register?
Please send an e-mail to info@iscl.it ultimately before midday of the webinar you would like to attend.

Nicola Ibbotson (King’s College London) with her thesis „Do design competitions comply with the law and does the law provide a framework for finding value?”.

The joint second prize was awarded to

June-Beom Kim (King’s College London) for his thesis “Is it time for English law to consider disruption analysis for site-overheads claims? The contrast of Costain v Haswell and Walter Lilly v Mackay”

and to

Gabriel Armanet (King’s College London) for his thesis: “Delivering the Olympic Games: Will Paris 2024 be less well organised and equipped in procurement than London 2012?”

Winners of the ESCL Thesis prize are usually congratulated in an award ceremony during the annual ESCL conference. Due to the COVID-19 this year’s conference (and therefore the ceremony) is postponed to next year.

The ESCLThesis Master Prize 2020 jury consists of the following members:
•    Adriana Spassova (The current President of the ESCL and chair of  the Bulgarian Society of Construction Law)
•    Professor Dr Benoît Kohl (Professor, University of Liège and University of Paris II – Counsel, Stibbe Brussels)
•    Professor Dr Anthony P. Lavers (Counsel, White & Case LLP, London – Visiting Professor of Law, King’s College London)
•    Professor Dr Hubert Stöckli (Professor at the Institute for Swiss and International Construction Law, University of Fribourg)
•    Professor Dr M. Hugues Périnet-Marquet (Professor, University of Paris II)

The ESCL encourages students to submit their thesis with a construction and procurement law subject and written in English for the next ESCL Master thesis Prize competition. More information on next years’ competition will soon be placed on the ESCL website https://www.escl.org/

If you have any question, please contact Mariëlla Veerman, secretary of the ESCL Master Thesis Prize: mveerman@ibr.nl and info@ibr.nl.

If you have any questions please contact:
Dr. E.M. (Evelien) Bruggeman (Secretary of the ESCL)
E. (Ellen) Boomer-van der Ploeg
Dr. M. (Michael) Müller, Bakk. (Member ESCL Council)
Tel.: +31 – (0)70 3245544
E-mail: info@ibr.nl