Judiciary Expertise: Filing a Report and Follow-ups

In the construction industry, expert appraisal is often seen as a necessity in order to reconcile different points of view on a technical solution. Expert appraisal may also be required to trace events in the progress of a project that may have altered its normally foreseeable execution, and had an impact on the resulting costs.

There may be cases where each of the parties concerned chooses to be assisted by an expert, but in France the most widespread practice is to ask the court to appoint an expert who, depending on the mission given to him by the court on the parties' requests, must, in his report, not only record his observations and issue a reasoned opinion, but also respond to the parties' statements addressed to him.

This article deals with the amicable or legal consequences of an expert report that has been filed.

Its aim is to inform decision-makers (engineers, works managers) of the importance and usefulness of obtaining a judicial expert's report on a technical dispute: it indicates the initiatives to be taken and the outcome of possible procedures following the submission of a judicial expert's report.

The following topics are covered:

• pitfalls to be avoided in both private and public contracts (presence of liability transfer clauses, risks of contractual foreclosure);

• the possibility of settling on the basis of an expert report, depending on the scope of its conclusions;

• provisional injunction: conditions of application, advantages and disadvantages ;

• remedies available ;

• proceedings on the merits before both administrative and judicial courts, as well as their foreseeable outcome, taking into account possible avenues of appeal.

The most frequent references to official texts are to the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC) and the Code of Administrative Justice (CJA).