by Tauqeer Nazim, ArbP
Disputes in international arbitration relating to construction and engineering have been on the rise in recent years. The rise in construction-related disputes can be attributed to the complexities involved in a construction project and to the fact that every construction project is unique.
Construction projects also almost consistently raise technical engineering and programming issues, requiring detailed analysis of a large volume of data like daily, weekly, and monthly progress reports, schedule programme updates and modeling, minutes of meetings, drawings, specifications, correspondence, etc. As a result, construction claims typically require detailed factual input and experts in engineering, delay and quantum evidence. The role of experts in addressing these characteristics is mostly of vital importance.
Experts can help the parties in dispute as well as the tribunals in various roles. Experts can be party appointed, or tribunal appointed. Most of the institutional rules are specific about tribunal appointed experts but this does not mean that the institutes do not allow for party-appointed experts. The approach these days in international arbitration is for each party to appoint its own experts to provide written expert reports to the arbitral tribunal with their opinions on specific matters.
There can be a number of different experts required in construction-related disputes such as engineers, architects, surveyors, delay analysts, accountants as well as legal experts. However, time analysis and quantum experts feature in most of the construction-related arbitrations.
This paper aims at defining various roles of an expert in construction international arbitration. The Paper further focuses on appointing the right experts at the right time which can be helpful for both claimant and defendant to gauge the strength of their case and in deciding on the strategy and approach to be adopted during arbitral proceedings. Contact <tauqeer.siddiqui@descon.com> to request the full-text of the publication.
Tauqeer Nazim is an engineer and has been working in the construction industry for the last 28 years. He received CAS in Arbitration in 2020. During his career, he has been involved in construction projects in the oil & gas and power sectors. Currently, he is leading contracts section as head of contracts in a large construction company. He has also worked as manager project controls in Middle East. Contractual correspondence, delay analysis and cost claims have particularly been his areas of interest.
