6 December, 2016
As the Christmas and New Year festive season fast approaches, along with the corresponding public holidays, it is important to ensure that your organisation has appropriate measures in place to manage risks arising under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act (Cap. 30B) (“SOP Act”).
Timeframes under the SOP Act are unforgiving and must be followed strictly to prevent any prejudice. The timeframes are important for both the claimants and the respondents.
As a potential respondent, you have to take measures to ensure that you are not ambushed by an adjudication application. Given that a payment claim or adjudication application may be served at the head office or site office, you should take steps to ensure that you have a process in place to promptly identify any payment claims or adjudication applications received and bring them to the attention of the relevant individual within your organisation in order that a proper response can be issued within the relevant time frame.
As a potential claimant, it is important to calculate the number of days accurately taking into account the public holidays during the festive season so as to ensure that any adjudication application made is not premature or out of time.
We have prepared the below schedule as an example to highlight the timing for responding to claims and adjudication applications under the default provisions of the SOP Act where there are multiple public holidays during the Christmas and New Year period.
The schedule is not legal advice and is just a guide. Under the SOP Act, the contract is the first port of call in determining timelines for payment claims and payment responses. As such, please consult the specific provisions of your contract in determining the time for making and responding to payment claims.
Counting days
You should ensure that you are counting the appropriate days when calculating time. Your contract may provide for the counting of “business days”, “calendar days” (or “days”) or “working days” and their definitions may exclude public holidays.
Under the SOP Act, a day is defined as any day except a public holiday. Public holidays are defined in the Holidays Act (Cap. 126). There are four public holidays over the Christmas and New Year holiday period, being 25 and 26 December 2016 as well as 1 and 2 January 2017.
| Date Payment Claim is Served | Date by which Payment Response should be served | |
| Where the contract specifies a period of more than 21 days for the service of the payment response | 23 December 2016 |
S.11(1)(a) of the SOP Act provides that the payment response shall be served within 21 days after the payment claim is served. The last day on which the Payment Response can be served is 24 January 2017, taking into account the 4 public holidays as well as the 7 day dispute settlement period under s.12(5) of the SOP Act. |
| Where the contract does not specify a timing for the service of the payment response | 23 December 2016 |
S.11(1)(b) of the SOP Act provides that the payment response shall be served within 7 days after the payment claim is served. The last day on which the Payment Response can be served is 10 January 2017, taking into account the 4 public holidays as well as the 7 day dispute settlement period under S.12(5) of the SOP Act. |
| Date Adjudication Application is Served | Date by which Adjudication Response should be served |
| 23 December 2016 |
S.15(1) of the SOP Act provides that the Adjudication Response shall be served within 7 days after receipt of the Adjudication Application. The last day on which the Payment Response can be served is 3 January 2017, taking into account the 4 public holidays. |
The Clyde & Co Clasis Singapore Projects and Construction team will be available throughout this period to address the needs of our clients in relation to any SOP Act issues.
For further information, please contact:
Eugene Tam, Partner, Clyde & Co
eugene.tan@clydeco.com
