Niav O’Higgins

Niav is a leading Irish construction lawyer with over 25 years experience in this area. She heads up the Construction & Engineering Group at Arthur Cox.

Niav has experience of advising various parties involved in both private and public sector projects, including state and semi-state bodies, developers, contractors, consultants, investors and funders. Her breadth of experience, across a range of industry sectors, gives Niav real understanding of the imperatives driving the players, allowing her to unlock solutions in the drafting and negotiation of construction contracts, professional appointments, and related documentation. She also provided solution-driven advice on dispute resolution, where she has experience of adjudication, conciliation, mediation and arbitration. Niav also advises on matters of health and safety, particularly as it affects construction.

Relevant Experience

• Advising daa on a range of infrastructure and other capital expansion projects at the airport, including the new north runway, utilising a range of standard forms, including PWC forms, advising on design appointments, traditional and D&B contracts, as well as on dispute resolution through conciliation and mediation
• Advising Center Parcs in relation to preparation of appointments, construction contracts and construction aspects of the development of the new holiday village in County Longford, including advising on core interface issues arising from different main contract packages sharing the site, including in relation to managing health and safety compliance across the entire site
• Advising Meta (Facebook) in relation to design and construction of data centre in Clonee, Co. Meath, including developing a bespoke form of contract based on the RIAI form (under licence) utilising GMP pricing model, now being used for delivery of Meta projects across Europe
• Advising Meta (Facebook) on all construction aspects of the delivery of their new campus in Dublin 4, one of the largest such developments in the State
• Advising Covanta on all aspects of the design and construction of the Dublin Waste to Energy facility, including assisting in resolving a number of issues encountered during construction and on completion of the works
• Advising Intel on a range of matters, including in relation to the delivery of the multi-billion expansion project at their facility in Leixlip
• Advising various funders in relation to various developments including city centre office developments, various hotel developments, and conference facilities
• Advising a wide range of developers and prospective purchasers/tenants and funders / investors on a range of development agreements and forward funding arrangements to secure delivery of both commercial and residential developments, including collation and delivery of packs of warranties, compliance certificates and related documentation
• Advising OPW on various contracts, including for flood relief schemes, and assisting in various conciliations and other dispute resolution fora arising in respect of a number of schemes (procured under the PWC forms)
• Advising on a number of adjudications under the Construction Contracts Act 2013, including a multimillion dispute arising from a data centre construction project, based on NEC D&B form of contract