By the earlier message i actually meant about getting the claim approved for prolonged cost.

Irfan

Mel,

Very generally the Contractor can claim actual loss and expense due to the delay. What does this actually mean? Lets imagine there is no contract what so ever as each different contract will slightly alter what I’m about to say. The same general principle will be contained in the contract though.

If the Client delays the Contractor from completing on time the Client is in breach of contract. The Contractor can claim damages from the Client for the breach of contract.

The aim of damages in this context is to put the Contractor in the position as if the contract had been properly performed by the Client (ie if he hadn’t delayed the Contractor)Therefore the Contractor can claim any loss and expense ligitimately attributable to the breach of contract, in this case the delay - this is actually a somewhat better postion than the Client is in as his actual loss may exceed his liquidated damages amount (and often does)but he can only claim the liquidated damage amount.

Contracts will alter this position by only allowing the Cotractor to claim in the event of specific causes of delay etc, but when claiming for these, the principle holds good.

The problem here is very much a market one

Say you win the job and apply for the importation of labour for that project. The project is delayed however you have won another job (B), do you a transfer the labour or recruit the new labour for job B
If you knew job a was suspended for a period then its probably ok to transfer the labour
However, I doubt that was the case and because of the nature of the market you had to keep this labour on standby.
For example say you did move it to another project you face the very real risk of falling into delay on both projects and therefore paying LDs or at the very least having the lack of progress letters flying across your desk, as you work for an E&M company Mel you also have the chance that other dependent subbies will claimn against you via the main contractor.
You in my opinion may very well be between a rock and a hard place as I dont think FIDIC recognises the nature of the labour market in the middle east.
Maybe you should transfer terminate your labour and then claim the time and expense of remobilising them. I would think this would be an easier case to prove however the client would be pretty upset.
This may have to go into the pragmatic claim box.

Mel,

If you used your formula then I would say you lost you’re case. Why?

EOT and its associated cost are based on actual case and not based on the programmed you produced.

Therefore your productivity should be based on actual number of people used at the time of delay and not what the programmed showed without the delay.

On the case that you just presented it clearly showed that you spend same amount of man hours on different number of days which means you reduced the number of people during the delay time but having same PF. This means that you cannot claim for labour hrs but prolongation costs are claimable.

Rodel

Hi Mel,

OK, even if the EOT is approved due to the "client fault" and that no variation is related to the EOT, u can still claim for additional cost occurred due to the redistribution of manpower.

Regards,
Karim

Hi Mel,

Kinley is correct unless you can proved idle time or down time then you have a case and it’s acceptable. That is part of prolongation cost which is similarly on what I did previously.

I have a hard evidence acknowledge due to client delays, our company still paying workers salary while they are on site.

A good example is due to access and restricted areas causing a down time and loss of productivity. If you can prove the loss of productivity by comparing the actual productivity factor during normal days with out delays or access problem against new actual productivity factor having delayed and access problem then that would be acceptable. This is the importance of where your periodic history records are been keep and submitted during the week ending/ month ending period reports which is acknowledge by the clients.

But again it’s a no guarantee situation.

Regards,
Rodel

In theory you can claim for the non-productive time of the labour.

For example, if as a result of the delay an item of labour stood idle for 2 days, making no progress, and was unable to be assigned elsewhere, then the contractor would be entitled to additional cost of the labour for 2 days. The cost means the actual cost, this would includes the indirect costs of the labour, including accomodation if relevant.

I wonder if you couldnt for example put a proportion of the costs into your overheads
ie labour camp, airfares, visas etc
I dont know what you do about the labour the client will probably say you could have put them on another job
Can you prove you did not do that?

Interesting point Mel
as the UAE has expatriate labour that must be housed by law and paid under the labour contract

any words on this in your contract?

Mel,

I agree with kinley.

A word of advice "be sure to develop an excel worksheet that will make it easy for you to track your claims"

If you got bog down with this exercise, you know how to contact me.

Cheers,

Charlie

Hello Mel,

The question is now clear.

Your statement "due to delay by the client" is true. I will assume it is proven.

You can claim more than additional labour cost, my hunch even though I don’t know the detail yet. This is so because of my experience.

In the event you have not yet hired an expensive claim analyst, you know where to contact me. My fee will be less because I will give you a discount compared to the prevailing market.

Cheers,

Charlie

Hi Mel,

project prolongation cost under fidic

Is this correct. I think prolongation cost only got precedence in th UK.

Other parts of the whole, maybe not.

Cheers,

Charlie