It seems there is confusion over the time at large principle.

Time at large is not conferred by a contract. Neither, as Mike correctly says can it occur when there is a functional EOT mechanism in the contract.

Time is said to be at large when the contractor’s obligation to complete by a specified date is rendered impossible by the act or ommission of the Employer. Construction contracts almost always involve some element of change, instigated by the employer, and that is the primary reason why EOT provisions are included, so that the Employer preserves his right to apply LADs for late completion.

If there were no EOT provision, then any act by the Employer, (eg, issuing a variation for additional work)will cause the contractor to miss the completion date. If the Employer was then still able to recover damages, then he would have benefitted from the obstruction he caused the contractor, which in inequtable and contrary to (English) common law (Mackay v Dick 1981).

The purpose therefore of the EOT is to award a new completion date to take account of the Employer’s action, thus restoring the right to damages from the new date.

If he fails to do so, or if there is no provision for revising the completion date, the Employer cannot rely on the damages provision and time is said to be at large, and the contractor is only obliged to complete the works within a reasonable time.

Clearly Mike understands this, sorry Charleston - I think you havent got it clear. It has nothing to do with status quo (or any other ageing rock-band for that matter). Neither does it come about by the failure to agree a revised date. If there is failure to agree, then that is a simple dispute to be referred. Time does not become at large at that point - rather it is a common law doctrine arising from Equity law.

Time at large is never part of any construction contract, hence it can not be awarded.

It is a status quo of project situation.

Ian,

Dont believe Mike. He has personal sympahty to contractors.

You maybe a small fish in the project heirarchy, but, you can make a lot of difference.

In one of my experience working in a prestigiuos project here in UAE, the contractor, a joint venture of international contractors, did submitted a revised program showing delays to project contractual completion. All my colleague accepted but only I did a convincing case not to accept the revised program.

I did englighten the whole project team are And the contractor, a joint venture of international contractor, re-submit a revised program showing completion date as per original contract dates of which we accepted.

Our form of contract is FIDIC.

Cheers,
Happy Planning and Scheduling

Dear All,

If the EOT claim is valid, the employer has the responsiblity to assess and award EOT based on the information available.

The contractor may choose to submit a realistic schedule in the absence of EOT being awarded. Of course the completion date will not be acceptable to the employer.

The employer/engineer/pm is responsible to manage the contract.

Cheers..

Hi Charleston,

I wouldnt say time is at large in this instance. This cannot occure because of the acts or ommissions of the contractor. To my mind, it is a case of the contractor damaging his own entitlement as a result of his attempt to apply duress to the situation. Should he continue, he might be guilty of failing to proceed and will hand the right to determine to the employer.
Regards
Ken

Ian, its telling that you said;

"there is only so much you can do without the support of the PM who thinks ’Breach’ and ’LD’s’ are dirty words",

such is the life of a technical professional! I always have to battle with my own team before doing battle with the other side!!! Engineers are often the worst for this attitude. Because they have an upbringing of problem-solving and seem to think that contractual QSs are the opposite (obstructive). Whilst they love the idea of adhering to method statements, they forget that the contract is itself only a method statement. If it tells you to do something and you dont, believing that the other side’s lawyers will remember in two years time how helpful you were in producing menus of options, then you havent been helpful at all - you were the root cause of a multi-million dollar mess!

Remember that if the contractor is "reluctant" to produce new plan to complete the remaining work until his EOT is forced through, then he is guilty of failing to mitigate and / or proceed diligently.

Hi Ian

Oh dear - I have been promoting a campaign on PP for the last month against the use of SS FF links - go and have a look at the thread I started called Ban These Planning Abominations.

It seems that the situation you are describing is something like repetetive use of formwork where the planned turn round of say four uses would be reduced to two or less.

That would be extra cost and not allowed.

The contractor is entitled to build in risk allowances in his bid and programme but the Employer cannot muscle in and change the circumstances and say that was the Contractor’s risk.

Take a look at the broader picture and see if there are sections of the work that can be conveniently done concurrently where they are now consecutive.

Look for lead lags + or - on links and any constraining start flags as these distort the critical path.

Is there more than one critical path? If so the programme has been manipulated to create them.

Are there any tasks with excessive float? If so can they be tightened up.

Check the calendar and work patterns to see if they reflect what is actually happening.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Hi Ian

It seems as though your contractor is taking you for granted.

I am assuming that you have an electronic copy of the programme - it is after all a requirement in NEC.

Apart from the delay events is the work being achieved on or ahead of programme? If yes then the Contractor has hidden float.

Start from the beginning and impact the events in strict chronological order and after each one review the critical path and see what change of sequence can be made with no cost to the contractor.

Continue with all events one by one in strict chronological order adjusting the logic as you go.

The end result will be a reasonable interim EOT award - but nothing more.

Do not issue any award until you have received a substantive claim in electronic format that you can review properly + all possible mitigation.

You will have already done the excercise yourself so you will know the result.

If the contractor does not comply with the contract requirements tell him politely and contractually to go jump in the lake.

Impacted as Planned split to individual events is as detailed as you need to get.

I don’t like windows or time slice methods because they do not consider the effect of all events on the whole project.

They are also problematic when considering Concurrency.

Best regards

Mike Testro

Hi Mike,

Totally agree with you, but I think you’re wasting your time telling Charlie to stop pontificating. I really wish that the private message facility was working, as a lot of the damage Charlie does with his erroneous information can be corrected with a private message to the recipient of his bad advice.

Hopefuly PP Admin will deal with the troublesome individuals who abused it get it back working again soon.

Chris Oggham

Dear Ian,

Impacted as planned is for the lazy. It is very simplistic. It is not realiable. A lot of cases for claims were thrown out because of this methodology.

The fundametal defect is none consideration of actuals and concurrent delay by the contractor.

I would suggest you grasp AACEI. I’m now the promoter of this valuable piece of document so that we will have uniformity in approach to forensic planning analysis.

Cheers,
Happy Planning and Scheduling