
Practice areas:
Sector experience:
Melanie is a construction disputes specialist with extensive experience in adjudication and the pre-action stages of litigation. She acts mainly for local authorities in formal dispute resolution proceedings on a broad range of matters, and has a strong track record of success. The disputes she works on span a range of matters, including defective workmanship; defective design; payment disputes; loss and expense; delays and damages. Melanie also advises clients on the possibility of commercial settlement before formal proceedings are commenced, with an emphasis on giving pragmatic advice to help the client settle the dispute in a cost-effective and efficient way.
Melanie has extensive experience of PFI disputes for local government clients, both in adjudication and during the pre-action stages of a dispute. She has advised on projects relating to the health, social care, waste management and highways sector. Most recently she has been an ongoing source of advice for a local government client in dispute with a contractor over a range of issues including fire stopping defects and unitary charge payments. Melanie has also advised clients on preparing for PFI handback.
Melanie also works on non-contentious matters. She is familiar with and regularly advises on standard form construction contracts such as the JCT and NEC, as well as bespoke forms of contract. She has experience in the negotiation, drafting and completion of contracts relating to schools, care homes and social housing.
Experience
- Acting for a London authority in range of disputes with a contractor relating to an underground heat network, supposedly the first of its kind in the world. The contractor has referred three adjudications, with the local authority winning two of them.
- Acting for a London authority in a wide-ranging dispute with its contractor in relation to a PFI contract. The dispute includes fire stopping defects which led to the decanting of elderly and medically compromised residents of the care home and having to place them in care homes outside of the borough.
- Acting for a London authority in preparing to bring formal court proceedings against the parent company of a former contractor who went into liquidation, leaving an unfinished and defective school for the local authority to finish. The parent company refuses to pay out despite being a party to a parent company guarantee.
- Advising a local authority on bringing a claim for negligence against the designer of a care home.
- Acting for a central government department in a series of adjudications brought by the administrator of a former contractor, claiming payment for works carried out at various prisons. After winning one adjudication outright and obtaining a Decision in another that reduced the contractor’s claim by over half, we settled a third adjudication and also managed to obtain a commercial settlement which would prohibit the referring party from bringing any further adjudications against the client.