Construction

We work as an integral part of each client's team to help deliver landmark projects across all sectors, including energy, infrastructure, natural resources, utilities, education, and real estate. We act for public and private owners, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, manufacturers, developers, public entities, funding institutions, project sponsors, and consultants, and bring commercial insight to complex challenges. We get involved from the earliest stages of any project and work closely with clients and project teams to put the right contracts in place, create project delivery strategies, overcome obstacles, and manage risk.

Our global team of construction advisers counsels owners, contractors, and lenders on procurement strategies and project development from cradle to grave, ranging from drafting requests for tenders, advising on bid submissions, bid compliance, contract negotiation, and dispute resolution.

We advise clients on project structuring—including public-private partnerships—and project delivery methods such as design-bid-build, GC at Risk, general contractor/construction manager, design-build and design-build-operate-maintain, EPC structures, and disaggregated procurement structures.

Our experienced team have extensive knowledge of industry standard forms deployed around the globe, including those published by FIDIC, NEC, JCT, IChemE, the American Institute of Architects, ConsensusDocs, the Engineers Joint Contract Documents Committee, the Design-Build Institute of America, Japan's Seven Associations of Architects and Contractors, Australian Standards Contracts, and the International Federation of Consulting Engineers.

We regularly work with clients to customize documents to meet the needs of projects, minimizing risk and working with counterparties to set projects up for successful delivery.

We advise clients across the construction landscape and provide practical, commercially grounded advice for project financing in complex, high-stakes matters. We have deep project finance experience with private projects, private-public partnerships, and public works projects.

We act for both borrowers and lenders in the most significant project financings, with experience spanning commercial bank debt; multisource financings involving export credit agencies; development finance institutions and multilateral lenders; commodity-backed financings, including streaming transactions and reserve-based lending; and concessional and grant financing. We bring together the professionals needed to handle every aspect of major project finance transactions.

We help clients identify and address statutory requirements and contractual performance issues during design and construction to mitigate the risk of disputes. Clients turn to us for guidance analyzing a range of issues, including design errors and omissions, delays and requests for time extensions, change requests, unforeseen or differing site conditions, and defective work. We also advise on performance security claims, insolvency related issues, and termination for default or convenience.

Our lawyers have extensive experience preparing, analyzing, and negotiating claims and requests for equitable adjustment on private and public projects. In addition to cost and technical issues, many claims involve allegations of delay and/or inefficiency and disruption. Our experience with delay analyses, construction costs, and damages calculations allows us to assist in developing strategies to resolve claims of every variety. We employ innovative technologies to support claims and negotiation (and, if necessary, dispute resolution through litigation or arbitration), including document management, cost accumulative and assessment, and graphics and animation presentations.

Construction and infrastructure projects frequently give rise to a diverse range of disputes from project delays and cost overruns to issues with supply and materials. Our team provides construction law and risk management advice in relation to all aspects of international construction procurement. We operate across every sector of the construction industry and have a track record for representing parties in substantial and highly complex disputes worldwide.

We have broad experience in state and federal trial and appellate courts in the United States and Australia; in the High Court (TCC), Court of Appeal, and Supreme Court in the U.K.; as well as in other local courts in the Middle East, Asia, and Continental Europe.

Our lawyers regularly appear as counsel in national and international arbitration (including under the ICC, AAA, LCIA, UNCITRAL, SIAC, HKIAC, ACICA, and DIAC rules), often on significant disputes with a cross-border dimension. We have successfully helped clients pursue and defend claims of all sizes and types, including construction delays, cost overruns, design and architectural errors and omissions, construction defects, surety issues, termination disputes, jurisdiction challenges, and insurance coverage in relation to projects across major infrastructure, energy, natural resources, technology and digital infrastructure, and real estate.