PERFORMANCE BONDS AND GUARANTEES: CONSTRUCTION OWNERS AND PROFESSIONALS BEWARE
Performance bonds and guarantees have been the subject of considerable litigation in recent years in not only the United Kingdom but also some other common law jurisdictions. The aim of this research is to identify the issues most commonly in dispute and the legal principles governing their resolution. Possession of knowledge of the issues and principle should alert the construction and engineering industries and their legal advisers to the matters that need serious attention in the drafting and negotiation of these instruments. Clarity in the legal principles should also contribute to a reduction in litigation. The issues identified include whether an instrument is a conditional or an on-demand bond, the effect of failure on the part of the beneficiary to give notices, availability of an injunction to restrain the surety from paying after a call has been made by the beneficiary, availability of an injunction to restrain a beneficiary from receiving payment after a demand has been made, availability of an injunction to restrain a beneficiary from making claim, availability of a Mareva injunction to freeze the fruits of a call, meanings of certain phrases used in the instruments, and a duty to account for proceeds of a call. The principles governing their resolution were also identified. Particular attention must be paid to any ambiguity whether a surety is liable is always construed in the surety's favor, and prejudicial conduct by the beneficiary releases the surety unless the instrument provides expressly to the contrary.
Lessons learned system in construction management
Learning lessons from past experiences, thereby avoiding the same mistakes and repeating successes achieved in the past can enhance a construction company's competitiveness in the marketplace. Almost every existing lessons learned system in the construction industry either tries to solve design-related problems or is limited to a specific type of project. The construction industry has been inadequate in capturing the lessons learned from its projects relative to construction management practices. The objective of this study is to create a lessons learned system that allows a construction company to acquire, store, retrieve, and disseminate lessons learned about construction management practices. For this purpose, construction management practices were categorised into 12 main categories that were in turn broken down into five hierarchical levels of subcategories; the relationships between the subcategories were systematically identified; and the information was organised into a database named 'CMAID' that allows easy input and retrieval of construction management-related lessons.
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ten years on: Successes and future challenges under the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2010
This book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) by bringing together the views of key practitioners and policy-makers who have played an outstanding role in thinking about and shaping EU policies on freedom, security and justice. 
 
Ten years ago, the member states transferred competences to the EU for law and policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum and border controls, and began the transfer process for criminal justice and policing. This decade of European cooperation on AFSJ policies has experienced very dynamic convergence, the enactment of a large body of European law and the setting-up of numerous EU agencies working in these domains. Such dynamism in policy-making has not been without challenges and vulnerabilities, however. As this collective volume shows, the main dilemmas that lie ahead relate to an effective (while more plural) institutional framework under the Treaty of Lisbon, stronger judicial scrutiny through a greater role for national courts and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, better mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of EU AFSJ law and a more solid fundamental rights strategy. The contributions in this volume address the progress achieved so far in these policy areas, identify the challenges for future European cooperation in the AFSJ and put forward possible paths for making more progress in the next generation of the EU’s AFSJ.