Published Sunday 19 July 2026 · By the JustEng team
A landmark Building Liability Order judgment, a dramatic high-rise investigation in Manhattan, a post-Key Bridge risk review and two significant adjudication rulings lead today’s forensic round-up — with clear signals for forensic engineer recruitment and expert witness hiring worldwide.
Landmark Building Liability Order ruling against Ardmore group
In Crest Nicholson Regeneration Ltd v Ardmore Construction Ltd [2026] EWHC 789 (TCC), the High Court delivered its most significant decision to date on Building Liability Orders, confirming they can extend liability for fire safety defects beyond the original contracting entity to associated companies within the same corporate group. The dispute followed an adjudication award of approximately £14.9m over defective external wall systems and internal fire compartmentation (Pump Court Chambers).
Hiring angle: Rulings like this widen the pool of parties facing claims and lift candidate demand for fire and façade specialists who can act in expert witness roles — a core focus of our forensic engineering recruitment practice.
Forensic engineers probe Manhattan high-rise column failure
Investigations continue into the partial structural failure at a 37-storey former Pfizer headquarters in midtown Manhattan, where two support columns on the 21st floor buckled during its conversion to residential use, prompting mass evacuations and emergency steel shoring. Engineers are examining loads added during the office-to-residential conversion and whether the affected columns were adequately reinforced (NBC News).
Hiring angle: Office-to-residential conversions are a growing source of structural investigations on both sides of the Atlantic, and forensic structural engineers with condition assessment experience are seeing strong hiring interest from consultancies and insurers alike.
Mackinac Bridge cleared in post-Key Bridge collision risk review
The Michigan Department of Transportation has published a consultant report confirming the Mackinac Bridge sits below AASHTO risk thresholds for collapse from vessel collision, with an annual collapse frequency of 0.000097 — comfortably inside the 0.0001 limit for critical bridges. The study responds to the NTSB call for 68 US bridge owners to reassess collision risk after the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster (Michigan DOT).
Hiring angle: The post-Key Bridge wave of reassessments is generating engineering vacancies for bridge assessment and marine collision specialists, and forensic engineer recruitment in this niche remains highly competitive globally.
£24m adjudication award falls in Darchem v Bouygues
The Technology and Construction Court has held that a constituent partner of an unincorporated joint venture could not refer a dispute to adjudication on its own, meaning the adjudicator lacked jurisdiction and Darchem’s £24m award against Bouygues Travaux Publics could not be enforced. Separately, the court refused its first adjudication enforcement of 2026 in High Tech Construction v WLP, where there was a real prospect the underlying JCT contract never existed (Ciarb).
Hiring angle: High-value adjudications turning on technical evidence keep quantum, delay and forensic specialists in demand from disputes teams — salaries for these roles are tracked in our forensic engineering salary guide.
JustEng is a specialist engineering recruitment agency headhunting hard-to-find forensic and disputes engineers for consultancies, contractors and claims teams worldwide. Submit your CV or register your vacancy with our team.