Engineering

All areas of engineering work are governed by contracts, as well as by other types of legal and quasi-legal regulation.  This is true of the work of professional consultants who design and manage engineering works and it is true of the engineering contractors who construct them.

A key feature of the law relating to engineering is that it is highly specialised.  This is reflected in the multiplicity of forms of contract.  Engineers accordingly need legal advisors who are closely familiar with, for example, the latest edition of the ICE form, the NEC, the I Chem E contracts or the FIDIC ‘Rainbow’ suite.  They also need legal advisors who understand engineering processes and have experience of the different disciplines, whether civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, chemical or marine.

Members of Keating Chambers have that experience and expertise.  Chambers boasts no fewer than six barristers with engineering qualifications, covering the civil engineering, electrical engineering and chemical engineering disciplines.  Their experience ranges from consultancy as an electrical engineer on North Sea oil rigs to civil work in Hong Kong to electronics work with the BBC’s Planning and Installation Department and to oil and gas process work with BHP.  With an ICE Gold Medallist, a former IEE Vice-President and a member of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, no other chambers can match Keating Chambers’ engineering pedigree.

Members of Keating Chambers appear in cases which interpret the major engineering forms of contract, and which shape the law as it affects engineering practice.  Barristers from Keating Chambers have appeared in the following cases, illustrating the wide range of engineering matters undertaken.

McAlpine PPS Pipeline Systems JV v Transco on entitlement to interest under a NEC contract for the laying of a gas pipe-line (Members of Chambers represented both parties).

Rolls-Royce Power Engineering plc v Ricardo Consulting Engineers.  A three-man team from Keating Chambers appeared in a dispute over a design contract for the development of diesel engines for power generation, pumping and marine propulsion. 

Henry Boot  Construction v Alstom Combined Cycles Ltd in the Court of Appeal on a contractor’s right to payment under ICE 6th edition on a power station project.

Yorkshire Water Services v Taylor Woodrow Construction Northern where a two-man team from Keating Chambers were successful in a dispute over performance tests under the I Chem E Yellow Book form of sub-contract used on a project for upgrading sewage works.