Judicial expertise: submission of report and follow-up

This article deals with the legal consequences of a filed expert report. Its aim is to inform decision-makers (engineers, works managers) of the importance and usefulness of obtaining a judicial expert report on a technical dispute: it indicates the initiatives to be taken and the outcome of possible procedures following the filing of a judicial expert report. It covers :

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

• proceedings on the merits before both the administrative and the judicial courts; their foreseeable outcome, taking into account the remedies available;

• 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.