Client delay and Contractor delay occuring at the same time

The Client has delayed the contractor by a period of 20 weeks due to release of design information and the contractor has incurred a further 2 week delay event on top of the client delay. Is the contractors delay event considered the dominant delay (i.e. the delay event driving the practical completion date)? Is the contractor able to claim for time for the 20 weeks delay? As the dominant delay is attributable to the Contractor, is the client able to refuse the contractor an EOT? Should the contractor be entitled to 20 week EOT and therefore liable for 2 weeks LDs due to his own delay event?

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Declan - That is an awful lot of questions and the answer to all of them is, I am afraid, that it depends. Questions of extensions of time can only really be answered by a careful examination of the facts.

What you can say under the NEC is that you look for the first delaying event(this itself may be a little difficult) and then you assess the impact of that on the Accepted Programme. Whatever impact that event has on planned Completion is recorded. If the change is due to a CE, that is it is an Employer culpable event, then the Completion Date is moved by the same amount. If not planned Completion moves to wherever it moves to but the Completion Date stays the same. When you come to look at delay event 2 you use that updated programme which includes the effect of delay event 1. You then look to see if impacting that event moves planned completion, if it does then you apply the same method as above to considering the Completion Date.

Whether the impacts are the full delay in delivery of design or some other amount (shorter or longer) will depend entirely on the facts, particularly applying 63.6 and 63.7.