Hyderabad: Officials asked to update knowledge on arbitration issues

Hyderabad: The Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) Department on Tuesday organised a session on arbitration issues conducted by senior advocate of Supreme Court Ratan Singh. Ratan Singh gave inputs on how to deal with cases and avoid the disputes in the country and across the world.

Ratan Singh is one of the leading arbitrators in the country dealing with both domestic and international arbitrations especially in the field of construction, engineering, infrastructure and mining. His expertise also extends to other complex high value commercial and civil litigations.

As the Municipal Department is dealing with several arbitration cases, capacity-building session was organised on Tuesday to have a complete clarity on construction law, understanding of work contracts, delays and extensions thereto, common disputes-their reasons and nature, and duties and obligations of Independent Consultants, Contract Administrators and Engineer-in-charge. Major focus was given on proper record-keeping for averting disputes.

Ratan Singh addressed on the requirement of awareness of law, due diligence, and appointment of professionals for proper delay analysis for determining reasons attributable to the delay. The discussion also revolved around the approach of arbitrators in construction arbitrations, and factors such as handing over of land versus mobilisation of resources by concessionaires which are common issues in such arbitrations.

He stressed on the requirement of preparing and updating baseline programme as and when the delay occurs, and the need for contemporaneous record-keeping and delay analysis, for mitigating probable disputes. He further addressed the requirement of preparation and updation of baseline programme to be preferably included as a clause in the contract between the employer and the concessionaire as well as a specific format for providing the delay analysis.

Singh also spoke about the six methods of delay analysis as per standard international protocols. Deliberations were made on the progress reports furnished by the concessionaire and the deployment of requisite resources by the employer to determine the quantum claimed by the concessionaire on a day-to-day basis. The Senior Advocate recommended that all data pertaining to all projects be kept electronically managed so as to ensure that the data was not impacted due to change in officials supervising the projects and the need for compilation of data chronologically issue-wise and in the proper format.