HOW DID IT ALL GO WRONG?

摘要

Simon Hems, Ince & Co LLP, UK, discusses some lessons learned from pipeline EPC disputes. "We're just trying to lay pipe." That was the stock answer of a witness in a major London litigation arising out of a pipeline project in West Africa that had turned ugly. The witness's intention was to try to convey the apparent simplicity of building a pipeline. Instead, all it really achieved was to demonstrate the ease by which even apparently straightforward projects can descend into time-consuming and expensive legal proceedings. As pipeline projects around the world are getting larger, longer and are being put into more exotic and hostile environments, and in a market where margins are tighter than ever, no pipeline contractor wants to find itself spending the profit (if they have made one) on lawyers at the end of the day.