The Project Manager, when assessing compensation events, has referred to the switch date from actual and forecast costs for a compensation event under Option A.
There was never an instruction, just a document transmittal. Eventually we raised an NCE which was accepted. Looking at the guidance notes, the switch date would be the date the communication was sent, not the notification date. The PM are saying it’s the notification date.
The guidance notes does not specifically refer to time but refers to the cost. Am i right in saying that an impacted programme should use the same “Switch” date? I would then progress everything up to the switch date and forecast after that.
As per usual, we are doing this after the event has already passed so I’m ignoring what has actuallly happened in terms of time. I know there has been some legal cases on prospective/retrospective claims but the focus was on the cost rather than time so i can’t take this information on aboard in making my case.
The “switch date” under NEC3 which is actually given the name “dividing date” in NEC4 is either when the Project Manager gave the instruction, or for all other events when the date of the notification of the compensation event.
My question would be why did you act on the document transmittal? This is quite a common issue. Any drawing should come with an instruction as to what to do with it - i.e. “work to it” i.e. an instruction, or some other description like “issued for information only for discussion - but don’t follow it yet”. If you have a process written in that says the transmittal should be taken as the instruction to follow it when the drawing is marked “for construction” then fair enough the date of the transmittal would be the “switch point” as you call it and the point at which you are moving forward. If not you should not have acted on the transmittal, or notified an early warning saying “we think you want us to do something different, but you have not yet instructed us to do so, and if you don’t do it soon it could cost more money if you want to go ahead with it”.
Therefore, I think the answer is it depends on my points above…