Cleveland Bridge (UK) Ltd v Whessoe-Volker Stevin Joint Venture [2010] EWHC 1076 (TCC), [2010] All ER (D) 206 (May)
The case concerned the interpretation of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, s 105(2). The court ruled that there would obviously be certain aspects of every contract where at the boundaries work might either be argued to be construction operations or be argued to be within the exclusion provisions.What was required was for the relevant works to be looked at broadly to see whether or not they came within the exception in s 105(2) of the Act.
Further, the question should be a matter of fact and degree, where inevitably there would be grey areas. It was not the intention of the Act for there to be a minute analysis to find an item which arguably was a construction operation or was within the exclusion, so as to defeat the purpose of giving or excluding the rights of the Act to what, on a straightforward and common-sense analysis, was a contract for construction operations within s 105(1) or excluded operations under s 105(2).
The court also ruled
