In this article, Laina Chan explores the evolution and development of the law in relation to the penumbral duty of care of solicitors and notes the increased willingness of the New South Wales Court of Appeal in recent times to find the existence of a penumbral duty of care in certain circumstances. The author notes

This article will trace the evolution of the common law concept of caveat emptor where a vendor only had to disclose latent defects in title whether or not known to the vendor, to the constraints now placed on vendors via their obligations pursuant to s 52A of the Conveyancing Act 1919 (NSW) and s 18

The Design and Building Practitioners Act provides that a person who carries out ‘construction work’ has a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid economic loss caused by defects in, or related to, a building for which the work was done. The article can be downloaded here

This article has been published as Chan, Two vexed issues in arbitration — The joinder of third parties and the arbitrability of indemnity issues — (2021) 31 ILJ 85.  It looks at the approach of Australian courts to the extended definition of ‘party’ contained in the International Arbitration Act 1974 (Cth) and the domestic Commercial Arbitration

Confidence in the New South Wales (NSW) residential apartment building market following the highly publicised structural failures in the Opal Tower and Mascot Tower is at an all-time low. However, even prior to these two highly publicised failures, there had been a “cladding crisis” in Australia following the Lacrosse building fire in Melbourne in November