Published Sunday 26 July 2026 · By the JustEng team
This week’s forensic and disputes round-up spans two significant High Court cladding rulings in London, a widening criminal probe into the Angeles City collapse in the Philippines and Italy’s landmark Genoa bridge trial — together with what each means for forensic engineer recruitment and expert witness hiring worldwide.
High Court quantifies cladding contribution claim in Mulalley v Sto
In Mulalley & Co Ltd v Sto Ltd, the High Court assessed for the first time how a contractor’s contribution claim against the supplier of a defective external wall system should be quantified. Applying a causation analysis, the court found the Sto render accounted for 85.83% of the external wall works, reducing the recoverable sum to around £2.03m, and accepted expert evidence that remediation costs were reasonably incurred (Kennedys).
Hiring angle: Judgments turning on causation percentages and cost reasonableness put quantum and façade experts at the centre of cladding litigation, sustaining candidate demand for engineers who can write robust expert reports.
Hotel landlord ordered to strip ACM cladding in Essendi ruling
In Essendi UK Hotels 2 Ltd v London Property Company Ltd, the High Court found the freeholder of a Wembley hotel in breach of its covenants and ordered specific performance requiring removal of combustible ACM cladding and replacement with a non-combustible alternative (Mayer Brown).
Hiring angle: Court-ordered recladding keeps fire safety assessments and remediation design in demand — a steady source of fire engineer vacancies and façade engineer jobs on both claimant and defendant sides.
Angeles City collapse probe intensifies as owner and contractor surface
The investigation into the May collapse of a nine-storey building under construction in Angeles City, Philippines — which killed 28 people — has moved forward after the building’s owner and contractor presented themselves to authorities. Investigators from the city government, the DPWH and national police are examining possible permit breaches, design modifications and added loads (Inquirer).
Hiring angle: Multi-agency collapse investigations of this scale typically run for years and draw in independent structural and geotechnical experts — exactly the profile our forensic engineering recruitment desk is asked to headhunt.
Genoa bridge collapse becomes one of Italy’s biggest criminal trials
Nearly eight years after the Morandi bridge collapse killed 43 people, the resulting criminal proceedings in Genoa have grown into one of Italy’s largest trials, with dozens of defendants and extensive forensic engineering evidence on maintenance and inspection failures (Al Jazeera).
Hiring angle: Long-running infrastructure trials underline how inspection records and materials evidence decide outcomes, and why salaries for court-tested experts keep climbing — see our forensic engineering salary guide.
JustEng is a specialist engineering recruitment agency for the forensic and disputes market, headhunting hard-to-find investigators and expert witnesses. Submit your CV or register your vacancy today.