Hill International’s claims division has announced that business has tripled in the last three year, said an official on Wednesday. “Over the last three years, the size of our claims business has tripled. In Dubai, we have gone down to 100 from 500 staff on projects,” said Bill Kennedy, Senior Vice-President, Hill International (Middle East).
“So the volumes on projects are decreasing but the volume of claims are increasing. In terms of arbitrations at Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC), it has gone from 80 cases three years ago to 300 in 2009. In the first three months of this year, they had more than 100 cases of which construction cases were predominant. These could be small, medium, and large disputes,” he added.
Kennedy explained that around 80 to 90 per cent of the company’s work is from governments, quasi-governments, developers and the balance from contractors. “These are major disputes running into billions of dirhams, if not dollars. And it requires a high-level of expertise to resolve these disputes,” he said.
