As of August 29, 2022, Alberta’s Builders’ Lien Act has been renamed the Prompt Payment and Construction Lien Act (the PPCLA). One of the most significant changes to the PPCLA is the inclusion of an adjudication process when there is a dispute between parties. Adjudicators are third parties which are certified, trained, and appointed through Nominating Authorities to resolve such disputes. However, when the PPCLA was introduced, the Government of Alberta had not yet authorized any Nominating Authorities, with the result that the adjudication portion of the PPCLA did not immediately take effect.
The Government of Alberta recently announced that it had granted Ministerial authority to ARCANA (AB) to become the first (and currently only) Nominating Authority. ARCANA (AB) is a partnership between the Alternative Dispute Resolution Institute of Alberta (ADRIA), Alternative Dispute Resolution Institute of Canada (ADRIC), and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). ARCANA (AB) expects to be formally appointed by the Government shortly, though ARCANA (AB) has already begun appointing adjudicators to disputes under the PPCLA.
The adjudication provisions only apply to contracts which are covered by the PPCLA, and not those contracts which are grandfathered in under the former Builders’ Lien Act. If the prime contract was entered into before August 29, 2022, then the adjudicative provisions will not apply (even if a subcontract was entered into after August 29, 2022). As a result, there will be a transition period in which many construction relationships will not be covered by the PPCLA adjudication provisions, and we expect that the utilization of the adjudication regime will occur slowly over the coming months and years. We will provide further insight on the adjudication process as it evolves.