Brazil Congress Chiefs Deny Wrongdoing in Petrobras Scandal
March 12, 2015 —
Raymond Colitt, Anna Edgerton and Sabrina Valle – Bloomberg(Bloomberg) -- Brazil’s congressional heads denied involvement in the country’s largest corruption scandal after being named among dozens of politicians for investigation.
Renan Calheiros and Eduardo Cunha, the heads of the Senate and lower house respectively, and Rio de Janeiro Senator Lindbergh Farias all rejected allegations of graft in the kickback scheme dubbed Carwash. Farias told the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper in an interview published Sunday that while he may have acted improperly, his actions weren’t illegal. The senator said he took a 2 million real-donation ($650,000) from Andrade Gutierrez SA, a Rio-based construction company.
Reprinted courtesy of Bloomberg reporters
Raymond Colitt,
Anna Edgerton and
Sabrina Valle
Mr. Colitt may be contacted at rcolitt@bloomberg.net
Ms. Edgerton may be contacted at aedgerton@bloomberg.net
Ms. Valle may be contacted at svalle@bloomberg.net
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What You Need to Know About Additional Insured Endorsements
August 30, 2017 —
Gary Barrera - California Construction Law BlogA well-drafted insurance clause is an integral part of a construction contract because it sets forth a subcontractor’s obligations to add the general contractor to its policies of insurance as an additional insured and identifies the manner by which the general contractor will qualify as an additional insured. In a typical construction contract, the general contractor will be an additional insured via a scheduled endorsement or a blanket endorsement.
Scheduled Endorsements
A scheduled endorsement contains a “schedule” in which the person or organization that is named in the schedule is added to the policy as an additional insured. The following scheduled endorsements are commonly used in construction contracts.
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Gary Barrera, Wendel Rosen Black & Dean LLPMr. Barrera may be contacted at
gbarrera@wendel.com
Bert L. Howe & Associates Celebrates 21-Year Success Story
July 31, 2014 —
Beverley BevenFlorez-CDJ STAFFJuly 31, 2014 marks the 21st anniversary of Bert L. Howe & Associates, Inc. (BHA). The company commenced operations on this date 21 years ago today. During the last two decades, the landscape of the construction defect industry as a whole has shifted significantly. In the early nineties, the industry consisted substantially of multi-family residential projects, and construction defect litigation was a regional concern focused primarily on Southern California.
In the intervening 21 years, the construction defect industry has become a nationwide concern with the majority of states adopting builders’ right to repair legislation. To mark the 21st anniversary of BHA, we spoke with some of the key personnel to get some insights and impressions of how the industry and the company have evolved throughout the years.
On July 31st, 1993, Bert formed the company after a long career as a general contractor. He had become involved in the construction forensics field in 1988, providing general construction investigation and expert support services to legal professionals handling multifamily residential cases.
James Howe, the firm's current President and Chief Operating Officer, joined the company in November 1993. Previously, he had been recruited by The New York Times and served as operations manager for their Orange County, Los Angeles, and Inland Empire operations.
In January of 1994, operations were relocated to a small, 1,100-square foot, two-story walk-up in Anaheim Hills, California. James stated that they purchased furniture from Plummers, and he and Bert carted all of the furniture up the stairs and assembled it themselves over the weekend.
Immediately, they hired the first employee, Matthew J. Nardella, an architect and graduate from Cal Poly University, who also came to the firm with substantial construction and design experience.
Matt was scheduled to begin work on January 17th, 1994, the day of the Northridge earthquake. “I remember calling Bert,” Matt said. “‘Bert, is everything okay down there? Do you want me to come in?’ All of the news said freeways collapsed. I didn’t know what was going on with the roads,” Matt continued. “Bert’s like, ‘Yeah, nothing happened here, get over here.’ I said, ‘Okay, I’ll be there.’” Matt chuckled at the memory.
Even back in early 1994, Bert was in high demand as an expert witness. “He was everyone’s go-to-guy,” Matt Nardella stated. “The day a case was filed they would call him first.”
“He had a real desire,” Susan Howe, BHA’s Chief Executive Officer, said. “The primary way Bert worked on growing the business was by showing up, being prepared, and being full of ideas. If there was a problem or an issue, he would come up with a solution on how to handle it in the scope of what we were doing. He identified solutions and provided additional benefits to his clients. That’s how he grew the business, really. He grew each individual relationship.”
During that period, the type and scope of projects began to shift into a more diversified mix, including hotels, resorts, warehouses, storage facilities, restaurants, and more, though, at the time, BHA mainly provided expert witness support in construction defect cases involving attached housing developments, such as condominiums and townhomes.
Many of the other current key employees within the firm were hired during the mid-90s and continue with the firm today. Don MacGregor, John B. A. Mancini, and Jorge Porter were hired during this period. “The business was growing quickly and constantly from the moment I walked in the door,” Don MacGregor said, speaking of his early days with BHA. “Within just a few months of me being hired, the firm added six additional architects, engineers, and design professionals to meet client demands.”
Between 1995 and 1996, the company moved to a larger office (about 2,000 square feet), then added an additional 1,000 square feet of office space by adding on an adjoining unit. However, by 1997, James started looking for new, bigger office space. It was during this time that the firm’s current Chief Executive Officer joined the company.
Susan G. Howe left an executive position at a Newport Beach based business bank to focus her energy full time on the company's financial affairs and regulatory compliance issues.
When James walked in to what is now the firm’s Corporate Headquarters at 5415 E. La Palma in Anaheim Hills, it seemed enormous. At 5,500 square feet, it was twice the size of the modest current office. The space had previously been built out by American Express Travel Related Services.
In 1998, shortly after moving operations to Anaheim Hills, another key person in the BHA story joined the firm, Mark Chapman. "I remember interviewing Mark and feeling strongly that he was destined to become a recognized presence within this industry,” James Howe stated. “I was particularly intrigued with his dual credentials. Being a licensed professional engineer and a licensed general contractor provided the credibility he needed to speak to both civil engineering issues and general contracting or cost issues. This seemed like a win-win for the client. He was also a very strong negotiator coming in, and I respected that," James mused.
Mark recalled the recruitment process and his early discussions with James. "The job at BHA was different and intriguing enough to get me to make what ultimately turned out to be the right decision,” Mark stated. “I had been concerned with design for most of my career, but was interested in this highly specialized niche industry. I knew the industry existed, but it was still highly specialized at the time. I had no idea that I could make a career out of it. Nor did I realize that my skill set as an engineer and contractor was the perfect fit to handle the multi-faceted analysis that is sometimes required. The combination of design analysis, field work, meetings, and mediations turned out to be a refreshing career change.
"Working with Bert was a learning experience I will always remember and cherish,” Mark said. “He always said his door was open anytime I needed anything. When I did have a question, he would always take whatever time was needed to listen, think about it, and give me an answer. I was always impressed because not only did he always have an answer, it was always the right answer. Bert made me feel like family. I knew I had made it and gained his confidence when I walked into his office one day and asked his opinion and he simply said ‘You can handle it, I trust you.’ The past 16 years of my life have been the most rewarding personally and professionally. I owe it mostly to my experience at BHA, the Howe family's generosity, and my associates. It takes a great team to be successful. No one can do it by themselves.”
Soon enough, the once cavernous space was too small. The company was still growing, and arrangements were made to lease the adjoining unit, 5413, doubling the corporate office's footprint to a little over 12,000 square feet. James wondered if the firm would once again fill the new space: “Again, it seemed big at the time,” James said. “Somehow we filled it up, and now we’re busting out of it.”
John Springman joined BHA in June of 2000. John had worked with Bert throughout the years on several cases, John as the architectural expert and Bert as the general contracting/cost designee. They had worked so well together, that Bert spent a year or two recruiting him to join BHA.
By this time, Bert, Susan, and James had expanded their vision from only Bert as an expert witness, to BHA becoming a ‘multi-disciplinary’ firm with experts in differing fields. “At first, [Bert’s] primary form of testimony was cost estimating and standard of care for general contracting practices,” Susan said, “but he soon realized the value in developing a construction experts group comprising licensed architects, engineers, roofing and waterproofing experts, and building envelope specialists."
Susan explained how innovative the one-stop shop philosophy was back then. “[Bert] had not only to recruit John Springman and people like him, but we had to communicate the synergies, cost and productivity benefits to our existing client base, because it was innovative and different.”
However, it didn’t take long for BHA’s clients to reap the great benefits having access to a multi-disciplinary integrated support solution offered: “We were able to provide cost savings to our clients, because we were collecting the data and sharing it to all of the different disciplines within our own organization,” Susan said.
In the early 2000s, the projects began changing from condominium developer cases to single-family home cases. According to John, “The insurance industry started to write in exclusions for condominiums. Forced to go elsewhere for business, it went to single family homes.”
Also around this time, the Aas court decision changed the construction defect industry in California. The court ruled that you have to have damage to have a claim. “Just because a code wasn’t followed didn’t matter unless damage occurred from it,” John said. “It is under breach of contract and other things, but not negligence. Insurance covered negligence, so it took away insurance coverage. Then SB 800 [California’s Right to Repair Act] came about and took a lot of those things and brought them back in.”
While continuing to grow its California market, in 1999 BHA extended its reach into other regions beginning with Nevada and Arizona. By 2003, their reach extended to the east coast with satellite offices in Ohio, Kentucky, and South Carolina.
The types of projects BHA handled also diversified. BHA continued their work with production housing and condominiums and other attached housing, and they supplemented this work with cases involving high-rise and mid-rise buildings, hospitals, hotels, schools and universities, religious institutions, sprawling custom homes, retail complexes, as well as handling delay claims, premises liability, trip-and-fall cases, worker compensation files, and others.
Susan recalled one of BHA’s first international cases that involved a mining operation in Chile. “The core of it was construction defect, but our main job was design analysis and estimating on a really huge scale,” Susan said. The firm was engaged directly through AIG. “An adjuster there contacted Bert at the West Coast Casualty seminar, a few weeks later Bert and half of the office were in Santiago. It was a very memorable assignment; I remember the litigation part of the case was handled largely in the capital city of Santiago. But the mining operations were quite remote. Each of our employees had to undergo altitude testing prior to being performing site investigations at the mining and processing facilities.”
By 2010, BHA had grown to a staff of over forty associates, with satellite offices across the country to support the growing regional businesses. However, in September of 2011, BHA’s beloved founder and President Bert Howe passed away after suffering a heart attack.
While Bert’s presence is still missed by the associates and, most especially, his wife and son, the company was well-positioned to continue on. Susan explained that James for about five years before Bert’s death had been slowly deleveraging Bert from the business. “He was helping his father to be able to work less,” Susan stated. “And as a result of that, we had all these great people like Matt Nardella, John Springman, Mark Chapman, Brad Hughes, John Tolman, Charlie Miller, Jerry Miles, and others who had significant tenure with the firm. They had all worked very closely with Bert, and had really matured, and now they had a few extra gray hairs."
So what’s next for Bert L. Howe & Associates, Inc.? Susan sees greater technological changes, as well as diversification in the types of projects, and the ability to offer additional value added services to their clients.
James stated that BHA has the capability to competitively enter new markets providing a superior credibility, cost, and customer service proposition. “Leveraging from our smart office techniques, proprietary construction forensics technologies, and mature business processes, we could effectively go into any regional market as efficiently as any other company, more efficiently than most, and bring a great deal of value to clients with minimal capital investment in these various markets.”
James also sees more opportunities for career BHA employees who are ready to take on new responsibilities. “I would like to see, and I’m trying to create, new opportunities and challenges for people to continue to be upwardly mobile,” James said. “I am energized by the prospect of delivering additional value to clients, and providing additional opportunities for key people here to grow and improve their lives economically through the growth of the company."
BHA currently is comprised of sixty employees, serving clients throughout the U.S. with offices in Anaheim Hills, California; Sacramento, California; San Diego, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Salt Lake City, Utah; Denver, Colorado; Phoenix, Arizona; Miami, Florida; Houston, Texas; and San Antonio, Texas.
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Will AI Completely Transform Our Use of Computers?
July 22, 2024 —
Aarni Heiskanen - AEC BusinessLast November, I received a newsletter from Bill Gates titled “AI is about to completely change how we use computers.”
Gates begins his letter with a prediction:
“Five years from now, you won’t have to use different apps for different tasks. You’ll simply tell your device, in everyday language, what you want to do—whether it’s drafting a document, making a spreadsheet, scheduling a meeting, analyzing data, sending an email, or even buying movie tickets.“
Gates dives deeper into the topic in his
blog post.
Revolution in Computing
Gates discusses the revolutionary impact of AI on computing, comparing it to the transformative effects of mobile phones and the Internet.
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Aarni Heiskanen, AEC BusinessMr. Heiskanen may be contacted at
aec-business@aepartners.fi
South Africa Wants Payment From Colluding World Cup Builders
July 23, 2014 —
Kamlesh Bhuckory and Mike Cohen – BloombergSouth Africa’s government is putting pressure on construction companies to make further payments as punishment for rigging contracts to build stadiums for the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup and other projects.
Antitrust authorities fined 15 builders, including Murray & Roberts Holdings Ltd. (MUR) and Aveng Ltd., a total of 1.5 billion rand ($141 million) in June 2013, after a probe that spanned almost four years found they colluded to drive up prices.
“The 1.5 billion rand in penalties is not the end of the story with the construction industry,” Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel told lawmakers in Cape Town today. “We are now in discussion with the construction industry on a restitution package for their collusion and price fixing.”
Mr. Bhuckory may be contacted at kbhuckory@bloomberg.net; Mr. Cohen may be contacted at mcohen21@bloomberg.net
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Kamlesh Bhuckory and Mike Cohen, Bloomberg
Business Interruption Claim Granted in Part, Denied in Part
February 16, 2016 —
Tred R. Eyerly – Insurance Law HawaiiThe court granted portions of the business interruption claim, while denying other portions. Phoenix Ins. Co. v. Infogroup, Inc., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162810 (S. D. Iowa Nov. 30, 2015).
Phoenix insured Infogroup's business buildings and personal business property, including data and data processing equipment. In late May 2011, warnings were issued of possible flooding from the Missouri River. On June 1, 2011, Infogroup moved and relocated its business operations and data centers away from the river and did not intend to return to the facilities. On July 19, 2011, Phoenix advanced $500,000 to Infogroup for anticipated claims under the policy. On August 22, 2011, heavy rain left surface water in the parking lot at Infogroup's facilities. Infogroup claimed that it suffered minor property damage during July and August, 2011, including damage to an uninterruptable power source and damage to a server.
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Tred R. Eyerly, Insurance Law HawaiiMr. Eyerly may be contacted at
te@hawaiilawyer.com
Investigators Explain Focus on Pre-Collapse Cracking in Florida Bridge
June 06, 2018 —
Scott Judy & Richard Korman - Engineering News-RecordThe National Transportation Safety Board's preliminary report on the fatal collapse in March of a pedestrian bridge at Florida International University in Sweetwater focuses attention on the widely discussed pre-collapse cracking in the main span. The report also confirms accounts about what the construction crew working on the bridge was doing before the structure fell.
Reprinted courtesy of
Scott Judy, ENR and
Richard Korman, ENR
Mr. Judy may be contacted at judys@enr.com
Mr. Korman may be contacted at kormanr@enr.com
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Structural Defects Lead Schools to Close off Areas
February 12, 2013 —
CDJ STAFFTwo Virginia schools have closed off parts of their buildings after inspections discovered that walls were bowing outward due to structural defects. The inspectors determined that other portions of the Pulaski and Dublin middle schools were safe for occupancy. The school board is currently consulting with engineers to determine how best to stabilize the walls. A press release from the schools notes that the unstable wall at the Dublin Middle School is in the gym area, while at the Pulaski Middle School both the gym and auditorium are affected.
As a precaution, the gyms at both schools, the Pulaski auditorium, and the spaces beneath have been closed off. Officials in the schools state that while they are seeking to repair the situation quickly, “we must operate under the assumption that repairs will not be complete by the end of this school year.”
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