Contractual disputes occur when a party breached the contract, or when the obligations were not fulfilled. Usually, these are related to the minor breach of a contract, but can also be related to the more serious issues. For example, a delay of a construction project is one of the most frequent and common disputes in construction.
Hence, identifying the dispute clauses in a contract is an important consideration for both parties in a dispute. As an effective tool, text mining has been used to identify frequent terms and topics. This can assist in preparing balanced contracts. In addition, it can help parties to avoid future conflicts. Moreover, it can increase practitioners’ ability to cope with construction disputes.
Recent studies have attempted to analyze vast amounts of documents. The process of text mining can identify frequently used terms and topics and their correlations. However, this method has not been extensively studied, especially in the context of a large corpus.
In this study, we used a text-mining approach to collect and analyze a corpus of legal cases involving construction contracts. In particular, we used data from the adjudication nomination body of the UK. We collected 624 legal cases. Of the corresponding legal decisions, most were verdicts. A number of legal cases, however, were excluded from the analysis, as they were not associated with construction. Afterwards, we analyzed the corresponding terms and topics to improve our understanding of the concept of a dispute contract.
Using the text mining technique, we discovered a number of common topics in the disputes. These include the following topics: initiation of construction, termination of the construction, contract term frequency, term frequency of settlement, contract settlement and liquidated damages. Furthermore, we identified pairwise correlations between terms and topics. Thus, we were able to identify a corresponding contract issue.
Our main contribution is the presentation of an automated framework that identifies corresponding contract issues. This automated method is based on the concept of topic modeling. It works on a document-term matrix. The process is designed to identify the common legal issues that are most often mentioned in legal cases.
One of the major contributions of our study is the development of a model for analyzing the concept of a dispute contract. Specifically, we have analyzed the principle of a dispute contract based on the concepts of mediation and arbitration. With the knowledge gathered from the study, we have been able to determine whether a claimant’s satisfaction is correlated with their satisfaction with the enforcement of a contract.
Additionally, we have been able to establish a positive association between the rigidness of the contract and claimants’ satisfaction. On the other hand, our research shows that the shadow of the future is an issue that negatively impacts the flexibility of the contract.
Overall, our study is a comprehensive assessment of the construction dispute management system. Although the findings are limited to construction disputes, they provide a valuable source of information that will contribute to the development of a new thinking about the Principle of a Dispute Contract.
