By Melissa de Oliveira (2026)

The paper awarded second place in the SCL Ireland
Young Practitioners Essay Competition 2025 presented at the SCL Ireland Conference on 27 November 2025.

Introduction
Suspension of works remains a dispute-prone right in construction contracts. It affects progress, disrupts sequencing, and carries financial and reputational consequences for all parties involved. Yet the right to suspend is not uniform: its availability and effect depend on the interaction between common law principles, statutory intervention, and the drafting of the contract itself.
At common law, suspension has no place unless expressly agreed. The legislative reforms that followed Sir Michael Latham’s 1994 report sought to address this imbalance by introducing statutory rights to suspend for non-payment and to adjudicate disputes swiftly. The United Kingdom and Ireland have since adopted comparable but distinct regimes, each reflecting different policy choices about cash flow, performance, and proportionality.
This paper examines how those statutory rights operate alongside two contrasting standard forms: the NEC4 Engineering and Construction Contract, founded on cooperation and proactive risk management; and Ireland’s Public Works Contract for Building Works Designed by the Employer (PW-CF1), which prioritises price certainty and administrative control. The comparison highlights how legislative intent and contractual philosophy together shape the fairness and practical use of suspension within modern procurement frameworks.

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