SESSION 2
Smart Legal Contracts for Construction
Presentations by:
Richard Saxon CBE
Built Environment as a Service: a Blockchain use case
Digital innovations are improving the present working of the construction industry, but the opportunities for digital transformation lie in how technologies could enable new business models with better outcomes for all stakeholders. One of these potential transformations is the ‘Servitisation’ of the provision of built environment, changing the supply model from a product to a service. Pressure for this change is coming from both the demand and supply sides. Some occupiers are seeking serviced space on a flexible basis, with no responsibility for maintenance, whilst some suppliers of advanced systems are offering to provide their products as rented services, overcoming customer reluctance to commit capital. This paper will explore the potential and how blockchain could support such a business model on a ‘smart contract’ basis.
May Winfield (Buro Happold)
How to Use Smart Contracts to Improve Construction: Legal Issues and Obstacles
Smart contracts are increasingly being considered to increase efficiency within the construction industry. Smart contracts have tremendous potential benefits for the industry. However, all such new innovations and technologies bring new risks and untested potential legal issues and contractual complications, and therefore potentially expensive disputes or simply not achieving their expected benefits. In this practical presentation, May considers the most viable purposes they can currently likely be implemented for - including potentially eradicating retentions - the obstacles and risks these could pose, and how to mitigate many of these risks with clear, express contract terms and other process measures.
Alastair Moore (Mishcon de Reya LLP)
System builds around DLTs are only 10 years old and figuring out where and how they can be applied in the real economy is still at an early stage of development. Whilst the Finance industry has seen many early use cases, we will discuss the diffusion and adoption of the technology more broadly, illustrating this with projects Mishcon de Reya have helped deliver. In the talk we’ll set out how we see different applications developing and how considerations like energy consumption are being addressed.
The session will conclude with a panel discussion.
Please note the agenda is subject to revision.