May 30, 2017
Can We Make Sense of Concurrent Delays?
Perhaps the answer to the title of this article is obvious - no. After all, if it were clear, then this would be a short article and to be honest this topic has kept me on my toes (and, thankfully, others) for years: “Extra time is an endless source of disputes. Nineteen of the 20 teams in the English Premier League are convinced that the extra time Manchester United gets at the end of each game at Old Trafford (so called “Fergie time”) never makes a fair and reasonable allowance for the delay and disruption that took place in the preceding ninety minutes. Awards of extra time in construction and engineering contracts cause almost as much trouble.” (Time For Completion, Michael Curtis QC, Construction Law Journal) So what are we talking about here? Let’s imagine that a main contractor is building a hotel under a JCT Standard Building Contract and there are delays arising from late provision of design information from the employer and inability to resource materials by the contractor.…