On an NCE3 option A, can you raise an NCE without an EWN raise prior?
The Contractor has failed to sign off the temporary works by a certain date. The Subcontractor has then raised the NCE for the delay to sign off, however this has been rejected due to an EWN was not raised for the lateness of the sign off and thus it has not been classed as a CE.
Yes @Goodrich100 you can notify a CE without having previously notified an EW. If an EW should have been notified and wasn’t it only affects the assessment of the CE, basically so the Subcontractor does not benefit from their breach. This means the Subcontractor may not recover 100% of the costs they incur if the Contractor decides that some / all of the costs would have been avoided if the Subcontractor had early warned.
Just to reinforce Neil’s response, an early warning is for something that MAY happen, the purpose of the EW being that the parties can manage the ‘something’ so that it doesn’t happen or the impact can be reduced.
A compensation event is something that HAS happened - it may be possible to mitigate the impact in some way, but the event cannot be avoided.