Construction law covers the agreements under which buildings and infrastructure are procured and built, and the disputes that arise when a project does not go to plan.

A construction project involves many parties, among them the employer, the contractor, subcontractors, consultants and often a funder, and the contract between them allocates risk. Standard forms such as the FIDIC suite are widely used on larger Zambian projects, alongside bespoke and government forms. The questions they answer are the ones that later become contentious: who bears the risk of unforeseen ground conditions, how variations are valued, what entitles a contractor to more time or more money, and how payment is certified.

Disputes in this field are characteristically technical and document-heavy. Delay and disruption claims turn on programme analysis, defects claims on specification and workmanship, and payment disputes on the certification machinery written into the contract.

Construction contracts frequently provide for arbitration rather than litigation, often following an engineer’s decision or an adjudication step. The area is therefore closely connected to the firm’s arbitration practice, and practitioners at Malambo & Company hold qualifications of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.