Thomson Reuters is pleased to welcome Ben Sewell, Principal, Sewell & Kettle Lawyers as a contributor to the National Building Service. Ben is the author of the service's new chapter "The Construction Industry and Insolvency Law".

Ben is an expert in insolvency law and commercial litigation, with 18 years' experience as a specialist lawyer. He is an identified thought leader by the NSW Law Society for the new safe harbour for directors, and chaired the Society's Insolvency Reform Masterclass in 2018 and 2020. Ben can be contacted at his firm, Sewell & Kettle Lawyers in Sydney.

This update of the National Building Service adds the new chapter "The Construction Industry and Insolvency Law". As businesses in the Australian construction industry experience high levels of insolvency, it is crucial that businesses operating in the industry have a thorough understanding of how the law deals with insolvency. This new chapter examines how insolvency is defined in Australian law, and why it is a problem for the construction industry. See [CI.010] – [CI.1020].

National Building Service contains expert commentary on the application of the BCA and the PCA as contained in the National Construction Code (NCC). Additional practice-focused materials such as: checklists, guidance notes, summaries, precedents and expert specialty chapters are progressively added to, and updated in the service to support building and construction lawyers, small law practitioners and the "occasional construction lawyer" in their practice.

This publication is available as part of the comprehensive Building & Construction Practice Area which comprehensively annotates the relevant Security of Payment Legislation in multiple jurisdictions, provides detailed analysis of the commonly used Australian Standards and Contracts in Building & Construction (see in particular the highly regarded Building & Construction Contracts in Australia) matters as well as specialist commentary on related topics such as Work Health & Safety. This Practice Area also contains Alert 24 - Building & Construction which provides daily alerts to your inbox encompassing developments, recent case digests and breaking news in relation to the Building & Construction industry. To subscribe to the Building and Construction Practice Area on new Westlaw, contact Thomson Reuters.