A compensation event has occurred, we (the Contractor) have notified the Project Manager.
The PM has not responded to the CE notification within the required period of reply.
Outside of the required period of reply, the PM has now responded to confirm a CE has occurred, however he has also stated that;
‘the Contractor has previously advised the PM that they will submitting a quotation’, and gone on to state that because we have not provided the quotation he has made his own assessment.
However, we have not advised the PM that we will be submitting a quotation. We have been waiting for the PM to reply and reminded the PM that he has not replied within the required period of reply.
Please can you advise whether the PM can do this?
And what our course of action should be?
Many thanks
The contractual process is as follows:
- Contractor notifies they believe something is a CE
- PM responds as to whether they agree it is a CE or not
- If they agree it is a CE then they request the Contractor for a quote - until this point the Contractor has no mechanism/reason to submit the quote.
If no response to 2 within one week, the Contractor can notify of the non-response, and if the PM does not respond within two weeks to that notification reminder then it becomes deemed accepted that it is one and the Contractor can submit a quotation.
In your situation here I would just submit a quotation anyway. They have not made their assessment yet, and you might as well try to influence their assessment by making it clear and concise what the cost/time affects are of this event.
They are meant to have given you the chance to submit a quotation at least - and here from what you describe they have not followed the process. However - even if you do submit a quotation they are allowed to asses it themselves if they believe you have not assessed it correctly so they will get to the same point anyway if they WANT to assess themselves. In the meantime you might as well try to influence their decision.