Poorly drafted or incomplete and unsubstantiated claims as well as the failure to properly administer the contract remained both in first and second place as the cause for disputes for 2019, holding steady from the previous year's results. Failure to make interim awards on extensions of time and compensation ranked third, a new ranking for 2019.
The first and third causes in 2019 shed light on the typical "chicken or the egg" causality dilemma that is common on many construction projects. For example, if you asked an engineer as to why he or she is not able to make an interim award on extensions of time and compensation, they would reply by saying that is due to a poorly drafted or incomplete and unsubstantiated claim.
Situations like these require participants to strike a challenging balance. The contractor must understand that a well-written and substantiated claim improves the chances of receiving an interim award, and the engineer must be diligent in using his or her project records to fill in some gaps in the claim and not reject it based on the absence of documents that exist in the engineer's records.