Methodology preferred by the adjudicator in an MEP design delay dispute

The dispute

The contractor commenced an adjudication seeking a substantial award for loss and expense arising from multiple alleged employer-risk delay events linked to late and evolving MEP design information.
The claim was supported by expert quantum evidence and extensive cost data and sought to overturn the contract administrator’s earlier assessments.

Our role

We were instructed on behalf of the responding party to provide independent quantum expert evidence in response to the contractor’s loss and expense claim.

Our instruction required us to review and assess the contractor’s expert quantum report, analyse the cost evidence relied upon and consider the claim against the contractual framework governing entitlement to loss and expense.

The adjudication had already commenced when we were appointed, leaving very limited time to form an opinion. This required us to rapidly review the Referral, absorb a substantial volume of information and fully understand the opposing expert’s valuation and the basis on which it had been prepared.

Our approach

Within a challenging timeframe, we reviewed the relevant contract provisions, examined the competing delay scenarios advanced by the parties’ delay experts and assessed how those scenarios should properly inform any valuation of prolongation costs.

We undertook a detailed analysis of the cost records submitted, testing whether the costs claimed were time-related, causally linked to the alleged delay events and supported by contemporaneous evidence.

Where the contractor’s expert relied on broad assumptions and a balance-of-probabilities approach, we re-analysed the available data and prepared a structured alternative valuation. This included the use of contract rates where appropriate to address situations in which the evidence provided was insufficient to determine the actual cost incurred.

We assisted the adjudicator by presenting a clear Excel-based assessment, aligned to the evidence and capable of being applied across the alternative delay outcomes before the adjudicator.

Outcome

In her decision, the adjudicator agreed with our position that the contractor’s evidence was insufficient to substantiate the loss and expense claimed and preferred the responding party’s valuation approach put forward by us.

The adjudicator confirmed that our methodology was more reliable and better supported by the evidence and recorded that the adjudicator’s appointed assessors adopted our Excel-based valuation when preparing information for the adjudicator. This included acceptance of our approach to day rates, treatment of staff resources and rejection of a balance-of-probabilities methodology.

The decision demonstrates the value of clear, independent and credible quantum expert evidence, particularly where an expert is appointed late in the process and required to distil complex and disorganised material into a valuation capable of withstanding scrutiny in a third-party process.