Our final year PhD candidate, Samer Skaik, has been highly commended for his submission ‘Taking Statutory Adjudication to the Next Level: Legislative Review Mechanisms of Erroneous Determinations’ entered in the Society of Construction Law Australia’s 2016 Brooking Prize. The criteria used for awarding commendations include originality of thoughts, contribution to the construction law, application in the industry, quality of analysis, freshness of ideas and the value of the work.
Skaik’s PhD examines potential law reform in statutory adjudication in Australia and worldwide. Statutory adjudication is a fast-track payment dispute resolution process established within the Security of Payment (SOP) legislation to resolve payment disputes to keep the cash flowing down the contract chain in construction projects.
The highly commended paper is the core of Skaik’s findings in his PhD. The paper found that an appropriately designed legislative review mechanism of erroneous determinations, as devised in the paper, would be the most pragmatic and effective measure to increase certainty and confidence in the adjudication outcome and reduce the opportunity for subsequent litigation or arbitration. With the proposed review scheme, it is anticipated that statutory adjudication will firmly stand as an effective alternative platform and a final resort for most payment disputes which will help attain its very purpose to be a speedy, inexpensive, fair and informal process.
Samer Skaik is in the final stages of his PhD in the School of Architecture and Built Environment and is co-supervised by the Head of School, Professor Anthony Mills, and Dr Jeremy Coggins from the University of South Australia.
