Construction Engineering Law
Overview
Engineering projects are technical endeavors that are performed by group of trade professional that join their hands together. These participants are bounded by legal contracts to perform their roles and responsibilities. Also there are specific laws, codes and regulations controlling the industries and their operations. In order to perform efficiently, engineers should be aware of the legal implications of all these contractual aspects, laws, and their inferences. The need for understanding these laws and regulations, being able to efficiently interpret laws, and implementation of engineering projects require special skill sets for the engineers that are not taught in regular engineering programs. Moreover, with the increasing globalization of the economies, new international and regional ventures, such as; China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), One Belt One Road (OBOR), Asia Infrastructure Development Bank (AIDB) etc. and increasing opportunities for foreign direct investments (FDI), the technical understanding of legal aspects, codes, and regulations have become much more essential and challenging for engineers in order to be competitive in the market. With the aim of enhancing the capacity of engineers regarding legal aspects of engineering application, it is proposed that NED University of Engineering & Technology introduce a specialized degree program titled Masters of Engineering Civil (M.Engg.) Specialization in Construction Engineering Law. In this regards, this document proposes details of Masters of Engineering Civil (M.Engg.) Specialization in Construction Engineering Law. The proposed program has been tailored to give construction professionals in building, construction, engineering, public owner organizations, and associated industries the legal knowledge to take the next step in their careers.
Objectives
Graduates of this program will be able to perform effectively and accurately in areas of Construction Engineering law. Specifically, the graduates
of this program will;
i. Understand knowledge of relevant legal aspects in Construction Engineering.
ii. Analyze practical and theoretical problems in order to provide structured solutions to legal issues in Construction Engineering.
iii. Communicate, write, and document clearly regarding the laws and its applications to the real construction project issues.
Compulsory Courses
The legal systems: Sources of law and court system; Basic Principles of Contract law; Sale of Goods Laws; Business Organizations; Money and Banking Laws; Health and Safety at Work; Agency; Property Law; Taxation Law; Contracts, Negligence, and Malpractice; Complaints, Motions, Trials, and Appeals; Partnership, Corporations, and Liability for the Acts of Others; Employment Law; Bankruptcy; Act of 1976 to make provision for the regulation of the engineering profession; Other pertinent laws.
Overview of Intellectual Property Law; The Use of Intellectual Property in Business; Introduction to Patents; Obtaining Information from a Patent; Patentable Subject Matter and Utility; Requirement of Non-Obviousness for Patentability; The Patenting Process and Patent Application; Design Patents; Protection of information and communication related patents; Business method protection; Trademark; Ethical Reasoning and ethics for engineer ethics, norms and codes of professional conduct; Workplace rights and responsibilities; Ethics and research misconduct, authorship credits etc.
Principles of construction contracts (basics, doctrines, and elements of contract.); Review of types of construction contract (DB, DBB, CMAA, CM@Risk); Overview of Standard forms of Contracts (PEC, AIA, FIDIC etc.); Design liability of engineers and contractors; Finance and management of contracts; Contractual obligations of employer, architect/engineer, and contractors; Concepts and processes in construction law including procurement; Right to payment, time, completion and liquidated damages; Public works procurement and tendering procedures; PPRA regulations, SPPRA regulations; New and emerging options including, integrated project delivery, public private partnerships, concessions and joint ventures, early and collaborative working, frameworks and alliances; Subcontracting and supply contracts; overview of international perspective of contracts and procurement.
Contract Administration for Claims and Claims Avoidance; Types of Claims; Construction contact errors; Unforeseen and changed conditions; Delays, disruptions, acceleration, termination, and proving of claims; Extension of time claims; Methods of Delay Analysis (Use of CPM techniques, Forensic Schedule analysis, window analysis, etc.); Claim for Additional Payments and its calculations; Construction claims related documentation; Claims preparation and presentation; Essential Elements of a Successful Claim; International perspective of construction claims.
Introduction to Construction Disputes; Starting point, causes and reasons of arise of disputes; Role of the Engineer in dispute avoidance; Dispute avoidance; Negotiation; Mediation; Arbitration ; Expert determination ; Early neutral evaluation ; Procedures of dispute resolution as per PEC rules, FIDIC, AIA and comparison among the requirements.; Overview of Arbitration law in Pakistan and Arbitration Act of 1940; Dispute review and resolution boards; Litigation ; Multi-party Dispute Resolution.