The full form (ECC) clause 61.1 requires the contractor to notify a CE at the same time as giving an instruction. The short form (ECSC) does not contain this clause, but it does say the contractor notifies a CE if “the Employer has not notified the event to the Contractor”. Does this imply the employer can essentially follow the full form procedure and notify CEs along with instructions?
Could the employer go further and notify ANY compensation event? I appreciate this may not always make commercial sense but if the contractor is slow to notify CEs, for example, the employer could notify instead and move the process along.
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Interesting question. In practice you would like to think the answer is yes, but as ever we are looking to follow the rules of the contract. As you say, 61.1 says the Contractor can notify if the Employer has not. However, under the short contract I see no where else in the clauses where it expressly says the Employer notifies a CE. The guidance notes states that either party can notify. So I think the answer is that practically speaking the Employer could notify a CE but it doesn’t actually state that in the short contract even though the guidance notes specifically says they can.
To my mind this is where they tried to make the short contract a bit too short and just missed out a sentence that would have been encouraging the correct behaviours. I think this has proved when you look at the new NEC4 wording where it now states in clause 61.1 that either the Client (new name for Employer) or Contractor can notify a compensation event.