Practical Considerations for Substantiating Disruption Claims

Disruption in construction projects is an unanticipated interruption to the regular progress of works, resulting in loss of productivity. It could be due to various reasons like excessive overtime, acceleration, or out-of-sequence work. Disruption results in a reduction of work efficiency, which leads to an increase in working hours spent (i.e., labor and/or equipment) on the relevant disrupted work, not necessarily extra time (i.e., critical delay), which leads to claims to recover such losses. In practice, disruption claims are often difficult to establish due to a lack of express provisions in the contract that provide rules or guidance on methodology and qualifying relevant event(s) which caused the disruption. This makes it difficult to establish definitive causal linkages and may lead to claims being more global in nature. Meanwhile, assuming evidence is given and it is compelling, it remains challenging to measure and justify the financial impact of disruption in the absence of actual records, as courts are more impressed by damage calculations related directly to the disputed works and supported by contemporaneous documentation. This paper delves into the practical considerations for conducting a credible disruption analysis in view of the methods described in AACE International RP 25R-03 through different scenarios, providing better explanation and more accurate estimation of the methods.