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Published by Inadequately Expressed Claims

Niki OConnor

The object of any claim is to convince the party responsible for providing a decision or
Date
January 29, 2019
determination that the claimant has the right to be compensated in ether time or money for
the event from which the claim arose. The claimant has the obligation to prove that his claim
is just and the standard of proof required to do so is based upon the ‘balance of probabilities’.
If the claim does not fulfil these requirements, there is a very good chance that it will fail
because the claimant has simply not adequately demonstrated his case.

I have recently produced an assessment on behalf of the Employer for a Contractor’s claim
for an extension of time arising from the late nomination for the supply of the interior lighting
fixtures, which were included as a provisional sum on the Contract. This claim is a very good
example of an inadequately expressed claim. I will explain why by way of some examples.

The claim narrative says the same thing in several different ways in different parts of the
narrative. Ok, this is just tedious for me to read and the only negative aspects here are that it
shows that the Contractor does not have much idea when presenting his claim, his lack of
professionalism by doing this this sort of thing does not however elicit much sympathy from
me. My advice here is to make your point well, make it clearly and make it once.

The narrative does quite a good job of ‘telling the ‘story’ and is well substantiated by the
inclusion of exhibits from the project records. It however relies purely on the facts
demonstrated by quotations and extracts from the records and offers no explanations or
conclusions as to what the bare facts mean. This leaves me to draw my own conclusions,
which is dangerous because my conclusions may very well not be the same as the
Contractor’s. Whilst the records should certainly be used to establish the facts, my advice is
to offer additional explanations, summaries and conclusions to tell the reviewer what he or
she should be thinking at each stage of the narrative.

The Contractor uses several clauses from the Contract to demonstrate his entitlement when
only two clauses are relevant. Again, providing that he has at least relied on the actual
clauses that do provide entitlement, this falls into the annoying rather than dangerous
category. My advice is if it is not relevant then don’t include it.

The delay analysis programme included with the claim to demonstrate the effect of the late
nomination on the Time for Completion seemed to me, as a non-expert delay analyst, to be
simply wrong at a basic level and the narrative offered no information as to the logic behind it
and how it had been created. Presumably, the Contractor thought that it made sense or he
would not have submitted it, but without the benefit of some form of explanation I certainly
could not see how it could work and it is not my job as the respondent to go looking for
evidence to support the claimant. My advice here is to ensure that any supporting document
such as calculations, programmes and the like are explained clearly in the narrative.

Although, based upon my experience, I had a pretty strong ‘gut’ feeling that the Contractor
was entitled to some additional time, it is certainly not my job as a respondent to prove his
case for him. My conclusion therefore was that yes, the nomination was late and yes, in such
circumstances the Contractor is entitled to an extension of time if the late nomination
delayed the Time for Completion. However, as the Contractor had not adequately proven that
the delay actually did affect the Time for Completion, my recommendation was that no
extension
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Written by Although, based upon my experience, I had a pretty strong ‘gut’ feeling that the
Sridhar Pentapati
on February 4, 2019 Contractor was entitled to some additional time, it is certainly not my job as a
respondent to prove his case for him

If the client already knew that this variation leads to EOT, why does the Clients act
alien and still await from the Contractor for justification principles rather than
sitting together and agreeing how much is the quantum?

Isn’t the waste of resources, time and money. I believe in most of the times
common sense prevails.

The problem is client representatives and consultants are becoming more of a

document control jobs than actually sorting the issues by talking and sitting across
the table. Finally, they hire the specialists to do the job.

How to actually evaluate the performance of such representatives and consultants

during the contract period and raise a flag? Is there a mechanism?

Written by Present your claim with a relevant facts, logic, demonstrator and write in a form
Shantha
on February 5, 2019 that it interesting to expert to read.

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