By Julian Bailey. Published by London Publishing Partnership, 
July 2024. Pages 3,300 over three volumes. ISBN 9781916749146. 
Price Hardback £160.00

The Fourth Edition of Construction Law was published earlier this year in three volumes. As noted in our review, the Third Edition was very impressive in its breadth and scope and the Fourth Edition is even more expansive and ambitious in scope. The First Edition of Construction Law proceeded primarily from the position that the law had then reached in England and Wales and in Australia. In this edition, Bailey has expanded his reach to include more material from Hong Kong and Singapore.

The book is organised into three volumes, with the first introducing the reader broadly to the subject area, covering the legal and commercial frameworks, contract formation, contract terms, procurement and contract administration. The second volume delves into the main topics which occupy much of construction lawyers’ attention, namely, price and payment, variations, site, breach of contract and termination, negligence, time, security for performance, damages and defects. The final volume grapples with related and procedural topics, ranging from consultants, intellectual property, home building contracts, to the various routes 
for disputes to be resolved, including statutory adjudication, arbitration and litigation. The scale of the book is clear when reading it, but also apparent from opening volume one, where most of the first 596 pages are tables of cases, statutes and statutory instruments, consistent with the book’s flier stating that some 2,345 new judgments and awards are cited in this Fourth Edition.

Bailey in this fourth opus addresses several important statutory changes that have taken place over recent years. As regards English law, there is the continuing overhaul of statutes and regulations following the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. Of particular interest to ICLR readers will likely be the review of public procurement laws, discussed in Chapter 4, Procurement, and the Procurement Act 2023, which the Cabinet Office in London has recently announced will come into force on 24 February 2025. Also highly topical are the legal reforms introduced following the Grenfell Tower Fire to promote building safety, addressed in Chapters 14, Defects, and 18, Statutory Regulation of Work, such as the Building Safety Act 2022 and its subsidiary legislation. For those in New South Wales, Australia, there is the Design and Building Practitioners Act 2020 (NSW), which seeks to increase the accountability of those carrying out design and construction, addressed among other places, in Chapter 18, Statutory