I have awarded an ECSC contract with defined starting date and Completion Date. At a later date I subsequently instructed additional scope as a compensation event. The work is not similar to the original scope, is of short duration relative to the original contract (10 days versus 100 days) but will be completed within the original duration with no assessed effect on the Completion Date.
Without the ability to apply sectional completion to this work I needed to constrain the time for this work by specifying a date for completing this additional scope, but clearly this doesn’t carry the same weight as the Completion Date from Contract Data 1.
A weather event has now occurred that has prevented the Contractor from carrying out any of the additional work and they are faced with costs for Equipment that cannot be off-hired because of it’s scarcity.
My question is who pays for the delay?
Clause 60.1(9) says the Contractor is liable for the "first one seventh of the total number of days between the starting date and the Completion Date but can this sensibly be applied to the additional scope which is of a far shorter duration than the original contract.
I’d be interested in views on the contractual position here and maybe a more pragmatic/fair solution, if there is one.