Northern Ireland Housing Executive v Healthy Buildings (Ireland) Ltd

Citation: [2014] NICA 27; 153 Con LR 87 (Court of Appeal of Northern Ireland)

The case concerned an alleged instruction to alter the scope of works under a contract for the management of asbestos risk in the Executive’s housing stock.The decision is of particular importance because it included interpretation at appellate level of the meaning of provisions of the NEC3 Professional Services Contract. The consultant, HBL, obtained an adjudication decision in its favour and the Northern Ireland High Court rejected the Executive’s application for a declaration that the adjudicator had been wrong in law.

The issues for the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal were whether an instruction had been issued by the Executive giving rise to a compensation event and whether HBL’s claim for compensation was time-barred.

The court, dismissing the Executive’s appeal, held that there had been an instruction altering the scope of works. In holding that the claim was not time-barred, the court gave implicit approval to those paragraphs of Keating on NEC3 dealing with the issue.

Counsel: Paul Darling OBE QC

Counsel

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