Quick, flexible and cost-effective: Masood Ahmed explains the Professional Negligence Adjudication Scheme
- Provides an overview of the Professional Negligence Adjudication Scheme.
- Summarises the results from the Scheme pilot.
The Professional Negligence Adjudication Scheme is a novel and entirely voluntary alternative dispute resolution (ADR) procedure for professional negligence disputes. It is based on the statutory adjudication scheme that enables parties to a construction dispute to obtain a swift interim decision on disputes. The intention behind the scheme is to enable parties to a professional negligence dispute to obtain a quick adjudication of their dispute, at relatively minimal cost, which will be binding upon the parties unless one or both of them wish to take the matter to a court or an arbitration hearing. The scheme documents can be found on the Professional Negligence Bar Association (PNBA) website here.
The Pre-action Protocol for Professional Negligence Disputes now specifically refers to the Scheme. Paragraph 6(i) of the Protocol states that the letter of claim should, inter alia, include: ‘An indication of whether the claimant wishes to refer the dispute to adjudication.
