Palitha Premasiri Gamage

Chairman and Managing Director
LLM (Construction Law & Arbitration) · PgDip Arbitration · FRICS · MCIArb · AIQS(SL)

Palitha Gamage has spent more than four decades in construction contracts, commercial management and the settlement of construction disputes, across Sri Lanka, Libya, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. He founded Resolution Focused International (Cost & Claim) Consultant (Pvt) Ltd in 2020 and does its principal work personally.

His career runs in a straight line from measurement to determination: quantity surveyor on power stations, offshore platforms and high-rise buildings; project and senior quantity surveyor through the Gulf construction years; contracts and commercial advisor inside a royal estates directorate; then claims specialist, expert and independent determiner. Clients engage him to build claims, to take them apart, and to decide between them.

Qualifications

• LLM, Construction Law and Arbitration — Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, 2017
• Postgraduate Diploma in Arbitration — The College of Estate Management, Reading, 2014. Awarded the David Lawrence Prize for the best performance in drafting and award writing
• RICS Direct Membership Professional Examination — 1996
• RICS Test of Competence in Quantity Surveying — 1992
• National Certificate in Technology (Quantity Surveying) — Colombo, 1987
• Intermediate level of the University of London LLB (external), passing contract, criminal law, public law and legal reasoning

Professional membership

• FRICS — Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, 2006 (member since 1999)
• MCIArb — Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, 2012
• AIQS(SL) — Associate of the Institute of Quantity Surveyors, Sri Lanka, 2011

Professional appointments

• Chairman and Assessor, RICS APC final interview panels, UAE and Oman, 2010–2019
• Former Chairman of the Steering Committee, AIQS Oman Branch
• Speaker in continuing professional development on construction contracts, cost management and dispute resolution

Expertise

Forms of contract: FIDIC; the Sultanate of Oman Standard Documents for Building and Civil Engineering Works and for consultancy services; SBD 1, 2 and 3 in Sri Lanka; and JCT management contracting. Procurement: traditional, design and build, EPC, construction management, management contracting and term contracts.

Law and procedure: the Arbitration Act 1996 of England, Wales and Northern Ireland; the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration; the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996; Oman arbitration law and the Oman Civil Code; UAE arbitration law and the UAE Civil Code; and the Sri Lanka Arbitration Act No. 11 of 1995.

Sectors: palaces, luxury hotels, offices, shopping malls, museums, banks, power stations, offshore accommodation platforms, archives, schools, hospitals, libraries, industrial facilities, roads, drainage, marine seawall structures, irrigation and landscaping.

See the full record of engagements