Below you'll find a list of all posts from April, 2017
With less than a week before the federal government’s appropriated funding runs out, confidence in avoiding a potential shutdown is waning. Because of that, contractors should exercise prudence and immediately begin preparations for a potential shutdown. Read the full article >>>
The law of contract formation allows parties “freedom to contract” in most aspects of transactions, services and/or liabilities. In the area of construction law, general contractors have largely negotiated a shift in the distribution of risk away from the general contractor and to the subcontractor with the inclusion of “pay-if-paid” contractual clauses that make the general contractor’s receipt of payment …
A major shift in the construction industry as it has recovered from the Great Recession is increasingly complex building projects with shorter deadlines. The dynamic has created increased and novel risks. Since bonding is a crucial risk-management tool in construction, surety-bonds experts need to constantly keep their finger on the pulse of the industry. Based on sureties’ understanding of how …
U.S small businesses are brimming with confidence — and backing up their upbeat outlook with a burst of hiring and spending. Sixty-four percent of firms with 100 or fewer employees say their businesses are doing well, up from 61% in late 2015, according to an Allstate/USA TODAY survey of 2,790 such enterprises in mid-February. Tell me more >>>
The Chapter 11 reorganization filing of Westinghouse on March 29, 2017 has opened the Pandora’s Box on the contentious issue of Chinese investment in the US infrastructure under Trump Administration. The immediate cause behind the decision to place Westinghouse under bankruptcy filing by its parent company, Toshiba of Japan, was the cost overrun at four 3G (third generation) AP1000 reactors …
The U.S. Construction industry is a $1.73 trillion industry. Its more than 700,000 companies account for over 7 million American jobs in building, engineering and a wide range of specialty trades, note Bureau of Labor statistics. But most appreciably, the industry exemplifies American ideals about hard work and upward mobility since many thriving construction companies are decades old, multigenerational, family-owned …
2016 was a record-setting year for the construction industry – with modest, but steady growth seen across all indicators and sectors. As a testament to the year’s success, construction spending in the US totaled nearly $1.2 trillion or 4.5 percent more than full year 2015 levels – nearly tripling the GDP inflation rate. To see more >>>
Public discourse over the construction of the Trump Administration’s border wall is rife with disagreement. However, a few elected officials have taken the absurd step to attempt to punish any company that does not share their political values on the subject. Recently, San Francisco County Supervisors joined local policymakers from Berkeley and Oakland and introduced ordinances that would ban construction …
Construction industry stakeholders got a jolt when President Donald Trump recently approached what a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official called a “third rail issue” for building trades unions: changes to the Davis-Bacon Act. Trump said in a New York Times interview published April 5 that he was “going to make an announcement in two weeks” regarding Davis-Bacon. The law requires …
More than two years after the $18.8 million La Canada Drive widening was largely finished, the legal battle that flared up in its wake between Pima County and the main contractor for the project is now largely concluded. In early April, the Western Surety Co. – acting as the attorney for contractor Select Development and Construction – agreed to a …
