It is perhaps an inevitable result of the current global pandemic that employers, main contractors and subcontractors alike will be dusting down the guarantees they have been given, or provided to others, in respect of their ongoing projects. For those who have been given them they need to establish what security those guarantees actually provide and, perhaps as importantly, how quickly they will pay out.

The insolvency of Carillion has placed into sharp relief the difficulties faced by those both up and down the contractual chain for a construction project when one part of that chain becomes insolvent and the ultimate supplier of goods and materials on site has not been paid.