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Despite its importance, legal research is often a line item that
comes under close scrutiny when a court awards costs to a
successful litigant. Two recent cases demonstrate why legal
research comes under such scrutiny.
In
Fox Excavating & Grading Ltd. v. 2012299
Ontario Inc., 2021 ONSC 451, Justice McSweeney was
required to assess whether costs claimed for online legal research
should be allowed in a case where the plaintiff had brought three
actions arising out of the same contract. Two of the actions were a
Lien Action and a Trust Action.
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Property developers, construction contractors and others involved in the construction industry are frequent users of arbitration. The only limits to the nature and complexity of commercial disputes that can be referred to arbitration are the limits set by the arbitration agreement from which arbitrators (with help from both statute and judge-made law) derive their powers.
Arbitrators powers are defined broadly in both statutes and contracts
In fact, as the WA Supreme Court s Kenneth Martin J. recently reminded us, commercial arbitration statutes and most commonly used arbitration agreements tend to expand an arbitrator s powers to deal with disputes that have been properly referred to them. This is generally done by:
WICET ) (the principal). While CMC
succeeded on their claim against WICET at trial, WICET also
succeeded on their counterclaim against CMC. The key issue arose
from the fact that WICET made an all-up offer,
expressed to be under Chapter 9, Part 5 of the
Uniform Civil
Procedure Rules 1999
(
UCPR ), to settle all
claims in the proceeding . The offer was also accompanied by a
covering letter which bore the heading without prejudice
except as to costs .
However, as the offer did not distinguish between the claim and
counterclaim, the trial judge had to establish whether the all-up offer for all claims in the
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The first stage of the NSW Government s attempts to
streamline State planning policy relating to housing has been
released, with long-awaited planning controls for build-to-rent
(BTR) developments announced by NSW Treasurer, Dominic Perrottet
(Treasurer) and Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Rob Stokes
(Minister) on 12 February 2021 coming into immediate
effect.
The new State Environmental Planning Policy Amendment
(Build-to-rent Housing) (
Amending SEPP) will not
only establish a definition for BTR for the first time in NSW but
mandate minimum lifespans for BTR developments, allow BTR
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This recent Queensland Court of Appeal decision
clarifies the effect of a late adjudication and reiterates why it
is important for contractors to frequently review their licensing
position.
Whether lateness of the Adjudicator s decision made it
void.
Whether the costs of the Adjudicator were payable.
Whether the works were excluded from the definition of building
work requiring a licence and whether in the circumstances the
adjudicator had any jurisdiction to decide the builder was entitled
to a progress payment under the Building Industry Fairness