The Employer has omitted some elements of fixtures fittings and equipment from the project, prior to them being ordered. They were all priced in the B of Q. The Contractor has omitted them from the works (which not only saves money but also installation time) but a claim for loss of profit has been presented. Is the Contractor entitled to loss of profit on these items? The reason for omitting the items in teh first place is to save money on the scheme as it is close to being over budget. This is ECC option B.
Omitting works will be a change to the Works Information which will then be assessed in accordance with the contract. A “negative” CE will generally be assessed using (for option B) the shorter schedule of cost components, of which fee is then applied within the quotation. If the unit rate of the items in question will go up because there are less of them, that can be taken into account within the saving, but fee still needs to be applied to the bottom line figure. There is no mechanism (rightly or wrongly) simply for loss of profit to the Contractor for omitted items.