Legal

A developer has been fined for endangering the welfare and conservation status of bats on a Derbyshire housing scheme. Patrick Weekes, a director of Radbourne Construction Limited of Vernongate, Derby, was ordered to pay a total of £14,435 (including costs) after pleading guilty to four charges relating to the development…

Wates and Morgan Sindall have forced three companies using their identities to rename themselves, after an official complaint. Wates Services Limited and Wates Contractor Limited were registered with Companies House in August and December 2022 respectively, and Morgan Sindall Limited was registered in January 2023. The companies are not related…

Kier is being sued over its work on an allegedly defective £36m police station – 15 years after it was completed. Administrators for a private finance initiative (PFI) company are looking for £3.5m from the contractor for the costs of the alleged problems, which relate to areas including the station’s…

Bellway has been cleared of improperly sanctioning an employee who tried to resell a former show home sofa she bought through a company-run charity auction. Karen Bushrod was a part-time salesperson at Bellway’s office in Corsham, Wiltshire, but left the housebuilder in October 2021 after receiving a written warning. An…

After four years of investigation, police and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have announced there will be no manslaughter charges in relation to the deaths of two demolition workers at a decommissioned steelworks. John Mackay, 49, and Tommy Williams, 65, died following an explosion at the former British Steel…

A supply chain firm has been ordered to pay a former staff member £22,000, after a tribunal cast doubt on its claims the ex-employee had pocketed cash by secretly hiring out its products. Concord Lifting Equipment (CLE), based in Wimbledon, south-west London, claimed that the former staff member had committed…

The High Court has ordered a Welsh council to pay Alun Griffiths £3.3m – and dismissed its argument for postponing payment as “spurious”. In an earlier adjudication, Carmarthenshire County Council was found to have owed £3,316,487.55 to Alun Griffiths in relation to the contractor’s work on the A48 road. Carmarthenshire…

A council has said it told the operator of a club to stop construction work less than two weeks before a nightclub worker was killed in a fire. In August 2016, Tomas Ceida died at the Studio 338 club in Greenwich, south London. According to reports, he had been asleep…

Two firms, one of which is in administration, have been fined a combined £120,000 after a groundworker suffered severe injuries when heavy drainage pipes fell on top of him. Anthony Pennell, who worked for R O’Donnell Plant & Civil, sustained several fractures to both sides of his pelvis, as well…

Balfour Beatty’s US business is being sued by a federal agency over allegations that a female truck driver was subjected to severe sexual harassment at work. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced this week that it had launched the action against Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Inc, alleging that the driver…