Nicholas Zeolla

Construction, Engineering & Infrastructure

Nicholas has experienced and assisted on a range of technically complex and high value construction and engineering disputes. Many of the matters in which he is instructed proceed by way of adjudication and he is familiar with all standard form construction contracts and often works with bespoke contracts. Recent experience includes:

Payment Disputes and Adjudication

• Acting as sole counsel on behalf of a Main Contractor to challenge the enforcement of an adjudicator’s award totaling £100,000 on jurisdictional grounds (against a 1995 call opponent).
• Acting for an oil refinery in parallel adjudications relating to the valuation of a multi-million-pound refractory contract and responding to a ‘smash and grab’ adjudication (with Mathias Cheung).
• Drafting an advice for a contractor on its entitlement to different heads of loss and expense in relation to projects totaling £140 million which have been subject to delays and increased expenditure due to Brexit, Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine.
• Drafting a Notice of Adjudication and Referral Notice for a £12.5 million ‘smash and grab’ adjudication (during pupillage).
• Advising a Contractor on their ability to challenge the enforcement of an adjudication award on both jurisdictional and natural justice grounds (during pupillage).
• Drafting an advice on merits, Defence, Counterclaim and Additional Claim following a series of adjudications in a civils and utilities payment dispute (during pupillage).
• Advising on the merits of payment claims made by a contractor under a heavily amended JCT contract in respect of the development of two penthouse apartments in Knightsbridge (during pupillage).
• Advising on an employer’s entitlement to liquidated damages for delay and disruption in a case concerning sectional completion and the development of multiple sites into one super-prime apartment building in Westminster (during pupillage).
• Advising a service provider in a long-term co-operative contract on their position on termination (during pupillage).

Infrastructure Disputes

• Drafting a Defence and Counterclaim for loss, expense and extensions of time in relation to a multi-million-dollar railway rehabilitation project.
• Advising an unexploded ordnance contractor on their contractual claims against UAE and Swiss parties for mine clearing works in relation to the construction of a multi-billion-dirham waste to energy plant in the UAE.
• Advising on the appropriate method for claiming costs under a complex PFI hospital contract (during pupillage).
• Preparing research notes and assisting with the drafting of the List of Issues in a case concerning a dispute over the profit-sharing provisions of a complex contract for a waste to energy plant (during pupillage).

Defects Claims

• Acting for a roofing contractor to set aside Default Judgment and draft a Defence and Counterclaim against a sub-contractor in respect of water ingress defects to a train station re-development in London.
• Drafting a Defence on behalf of a supplier in a case concerning allegations of defects to the wooden flooring at a residential property.
• Drafting Particulars of Claim in a complex fire-safety dispute concerning defective cladding at a building in the Paddington basin (during pupillage).
• Drafting particulars of claim in an MEP defects case concerning new-build flats in north London (during pupillage).
• Drafting a mediation position statement on behalf of the Claimant in a high value multi-party fire-safety defects claim concerning a high-rise student accommodation building in London (during pupillage).
• Drafting a Defence, Scott Schedule and Request for Further Information in a defects claim concerning the timber frame elements of a new boarding house (during pupillage).
• Advising a homeowner on the prospects and quantum of their claim against their builders for a house renovation project in London.
• Advising on the liability of a number of Defendants for timber defects to a landmark high-rise development in London (during pupillage).