Legal

A site manager who pretended his name was James Bond has been ordered to pay more than £10,500 after he threatened inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). David Robert Lane, 59, was managing an extensive cottage refurbishment in Rugeley, Staffordshire, when two passing HSE inspectors witnessed unsafe working…

A second immigration enforcement operation at a construction site in Swindon has found all workers to be operating legally. Wiltshire Police said it had supported Home Office immigration enforcement officers in an inspection on 22 January at the ex-Honda site in Panattoni Park. It followed an immigration enforcement operation at…

A facade subcontractor has been ordered to pay £80,500 after the High Court confirmed that an assignee of a construction contract can pursue adjudication against the original contractor. The judgment, handed down on 20 January, upheld an earlier adjudicator’s ruling in favour of Paragon Group Ltd in a dispute with…

A mechanical and electrical (M&E) subcontractor that argued an adjudicator had gone off on a “frolic” when determining the cost of “defective” work has been ordered by the High Court to repay a contractor more than £100,000. Loughton-based VMA Services Ltd accused the adjudicator of “ignoring” evidence and using “guesswork”…

A former Vinci employee who claimed two managers harassed her due to her sex after she reported paint damage and scratches to her car has lost her tribunal case. Site administrator Susan Turner made the allegations against construction manager David Smolinski and commercial manager Barry Powell over how they dealt…

Seven construction workers who were suspended after downing tools at a refinery job over health and safety concerns will not be returning to the site. The employees were among a group of 30 suspended in December from client Johnson Matthey’s project, with unions alleging “unsafe” working conditions. The 30 workers…

A construction firm has been fined £1,000 after it repeatedly failed to comply with Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI) notices about “unsafe scaffolding”. Fermanagh-based HICS Properties Ltd was visited by HSENI inspectors between May and August 2022 during its work at a housing development at Rosscah View,…

A bankrupt builder has been jailed for a year after failing to declare his status when obtaining money from five people and leaving them in “unliveable” homes. Nigel Dinneen, 72, of Mickleover, Derby, took advanced payments for work without telling customers that he had been declared bankrupt in July 2019,…

A London council is pursuing McLaren Construction over what it says is a failure to meet compliance issues at a major new-build development. The contractor delivered the £85m mixed-use 12 Thames Road development in Barking for the local authority’s Be First regeneration arm. The scheme features 156 homes across four…

The Supreme Court has ruled that a contractor did not have the right under JCT design-and-build terms to terminate a contract after it was paid late twice. The ruling ends a long-running dispute between Providence Building Services Ltd and client Hexagon Housing Association Ltd, which it was carrying out £7.2m…