As Hong Kong's Security of Payment Ordinance Moves Into Practice, a New Edition Maps Adjudication Across Asia
Hong Kong's Construction Industry Security of Payment Ordinance took full effect on 28 August 2025, and the government's latest progress report — a Legislative Council written reply dated 24 June 2026 — shows the regime settling into practice. Five registered adjudicator nominating bodies now list 270 adjudicators between them, led by the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre with 100, and officials note that no adjudication case had yet been filed, which they read as evidence that the Ordinance's ban on "pay when paid" terms and its 28-day/55-working-day adjudication timetable are already deterring late payment before disputes reach that stage.
That timing makes the newly published second edition of International Contractual and Statutory Adjudication, edited by construction law barrister and adjudicator Andrew Burr, unusually well placed. The edition adds three new jurisdictional chapters — Hong Kong, Mauritius and Thailand — plus a new appendix comparing adjudication review mechanisms, arriving just as Hong Kong's own regime moves from statute book to live practice.
The practical uses are immediate. Counsel advising contractors and subcontractors on Hong Kong projects now have a dedicated chapter working through the Ordinance's adjudication timetable and payment-term restrictions alongside the underlying statute. Firms running cross-border construction disputes can benchmark Hong Kong's regime against more than twenty other jurisdictions — the UK, Ireland, seven Australian states and territories, Singapore, Malaysia, Germany, Canada and the USA among them — in a single volume rather than twenty separate ones. And anyone tracking how statutory adjudication is spreading as a payment-dispute mechanism can follow the same pattern now unfolding in Mauritius and Thailand.
For law libraries supporting construction law practice or research, that breadth is the point: a single current reference that puts primary legislation, institutional dispute board rules (CIArb, the Beijing Arbitration Commission, FIDIC, the ICC) and a comparative appendix side by side saves exactly the cross-referencing work that construction law research usually demands.
CLNZ Books ships this title and its wider construction and arbitration law catalogue worldwide, with institutional invoicing available on request and secure payment by card or PayPal.
Q&A
What is Hong Kong's Construction Industry Security of Payment Ordinance?
In force since 28 August 2025, it bans unfair payment terms such as "pay when paid" and creates a statutory adjudication process for construction payment disputes, with a 28-day window to start adjudication and a 55-working-day decision deadline.
What's new in the second edition of International Contractual and Statutory Adjudication?
Three new jurisdictional chapters — Hong Kong, Mauritius and Thailand — plus a new appendix comparing adjudication review mechanisms across the more than 20 jurisdictions covered.
How many adjudicators are registered in Hong Kong under the new regime?
As of 15 June 2026, five registered nominating bodies listed 270 adjudicators in total, with the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre registering the most (100).
Who edited International Contractual and Statutory Adjudication?
Andrew Burr, a construction law barrister, arbitrator and adjudicator who sat on the ICC's advisory committee for revising its Dispute Board Rules and was formerly general and articles editor of the Construction Law Journal.
Where can I buy International Contractual and Statutory Adjudication?
International Contractual and Statutory Adjudication, 2nd ed., is available for order directly from CLNZ Books, with secure worldwide shipping and card/PayPal payment.