Under an Option A contract, the Contractor is in delay through its own fault and is seeking to recover time by working weekends. The Employer is incurring additional costs in supervising these working weekends having the Supervisor and PM on site. Can the Employer recover its costs from the Contractor?
No, the Employer should have stated in the Works Information what normal working hours applied to the Site and that work outside these times is either not permitted at all or only permitted in certain circumstances e.g. when the PM accepts the Contractor’s request.
If the Contractor is in delay then it’s in both Parties interests to want to seek to mitigate the delay. The Contractor will be incurring losses already and most likely faces delay damages if they are late. The Employer shouldn’t be seeking to charge the Contractor for doing their best to finish on time.
Agreed. My thoughts too.