Published Thursday 9 July 2026 · By the JustEng team
An unusually busy week for forensic engineering and construction disputes: a formal collapse investigation is under way on a Manhattan high-rise, NIST’s Champlain Towers findings continue to reshape structural practice, and courts on both sides of the Atlantic have handed down rulings that will influence liability arguments for years. Here are the developments engineering leaders should track.
Manhattan high-rise conversion: buckled columns trigger forensic evaluation
New York City’s Department of Buildings has ordered a third-party forensic evaluation at 235 East 42nd Street, the former Pfizer HQ being converted to residential apartments by MetroLoft. Two columns on the 21st floor buckled earlier this week and floors sagged by up to four inches. CNN’s 8 July update reports that emergency struts and trusses are still holding the load while a full investigation begins. The DOB probe will cover construction documents, witness interviews, a site sweep and available site imagery. Reporting attributes the failure to the additional load from newly added upper floors, with the developer citing possible reinforcement gaps.
Hiring angle: Office-to-residential conversions remain a hot pipeline in every major city and each incident like this one tightens the market for senior forensic structural engineers — see our forensic engineering recruitment desk.
NIST releases technical findings on Champlain Towers South
NIST published its technical findings on 22 June into the 2021 partial collapse of Champlain Towers South. The agency concluded that design deficiencies, deviations during original construction, added loads over the building’s life and long-term corrosion combined to erode capacity, and that punching-shear failures at two slab-column connections beneath the pool deck initiated a progressive collapse that ran for weeks before the final failure. A final report with recommendations for code and standards changes is still to come.
Hiring angle: Expect a fresh wave of instructions for slab-column connection assessments, corrosion surveys and pool deck reviews on older reinforced concrete residential stock — forensic salary pressure is reflected in our forensic engineering salary guide.
UK High Court: building owners bear direct liability for ACM cladding
The recent judgment in Essendi UK Hotels 2 Limited v London Property Company Limited (Stephen Davies J, 5 June 2026), analysed in a recent Local Government Lawyer summary, held that a building owner breached its lease obligations by failing to remediate ACM cladding with a polyethylene core, regardless of who installed the panels or whether visible damage was present. The court found the tenant’s eventual closure of the hotel flowed directly from that failure.
Hiring angle: The ruling pushes façade condition assessments and remediation strategy work further up the priority list for building owners — producing steady instructions for cladding forensic specialists and expert witnesses.
Alberta Court of Appeal widens the reach of arbitration clauses
In Arsopi v ARVOS, handed down on 8 July, the Alberta Court of Appeal confirmed that an arbitration clause covering “all disputes arising out of or in connection with” a contract can capture statutory indemnity claims under the Tort-Feasors Act even where such claims were never contemplated at signing, according to Mondaq’s dispute resolution note. For construction contracts with international counterparties, the case is a reminder to draft dispute clauses with the widest range of downstream claims in mind.
Hiring angle: Broader arbitration scope means broader expert witness instructions — delay, quantum and forensic experts are increasingly asked to opine on statutory indemnity heads of loss they historically ignored.
ICC Highly Expedited Arbitration: a fast route to enforce DAB decisions
The 2026 ICC Rules, which took effect on 1 June, introduced a Highly Expedited Arbitration procedure. White & Case’s insight notes that construction parties may use the new track to enforce Dispute Adjudication Board decisions on FIDIC-style contracts far more quickly than under the standard timetable.
Hiring angle: Faster procedures compress expert witness timetables — demand for forensic engineers who can deliver defensible reports on a shortened schedule is increasing across international projects.
Grenfell criminal charging decisions expected before June 2027
Construction Management confirms that the Metropolitan Police remains on course to submit remaining files to the CPS by September 2026, with charging decisions on 57 individuals and 20 organisations expected before the tenth anniversary of the fire. Corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter and health and safety offences are all in scope.
Hiring angle: A charging window opening in late 2026 will pull fire, façade and construction management expert witnesses into instruction for years to come.
If your practice is scaling forensic or expert witness capability — or if you are a forensic engineer weighing your next move — JustEng specialises in this niche. Submit your CV or register your vacancy and we will be in touch.