NEC3 ECC: Can Employer retract a "negative" CE

Employer issued instruction, CE was implemented. After a considerable time period had passed Contractor advised that the cannot execute the works and requested Employer remove it from their scope. Employer has done so in good faith and gave Contractor a negative CE removing the works from their scope. Alll parties have signed. Now we gave instruction to others and its going to cost us more. Do I have a recourse to “back charge” this back to Contractor seeing that we have an implemented CE already. My view is they took so long in notifying us that they left Employer with little to no room for mitigating the risk. Is there maybe a recourse in the contract? .

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No - not as you describe.There is no where in the contract that allows you to recover such cost.

First instruction was a CE which changes the Works Information which was assessed on its own merits. Then there was a second instruction to change the Works Information again (back to what it used to be) which will be assessed on its own merits at that point in time (not always the same value as when it was added). You did not have to “un-instruct” the works as the Contractor is obliged to follow an instruction (27.3) but there is no where now for you to recover the additional cost for going to another third party for these works.