Musings of a busy mind

It's 5 years since Sir David Williams QC, Deborah Hart and I sat down to dinner with then Attorney-General, Hon Christopher Finlayson QC, to discuss the benefits of promoting New Zealand as a destination for international arbitration, and the amendments we would like to the Arbitration Act 1996.

Finally, this evening, the Bill has been passed into law - with some amendment, it has to be said, but passed into law it has. Nice to be credited in Andrew Bayly MP's opening comments. It's not every day you get noted in Hansard!

The challenge for most boat builders, even at the super yacht level, is to establish an efficient process for manufacturing well designed production boats which meet a market demand.

So, when you have established your ideal production boat, how do you deal with the "cease and desist" letter from the designer's lawyer?

If a contract is terminated, and the project is in delay, how do liquidated damages work? If the contract has come to an end, the traditional view is that the owner's entitlement to liquidated damages falls away, and potentially greater general damages will become payable from termination.

A recent UK Court of Appeal decision considered whether or not a software development company which had failed to deliver the required software to a Thai state-owned oil and gas company was liable for liquidated damages for delay, notwithstanding that it's contract had been terminated before the due date for delivery.