Arbitration · Construction
Construction arbitration: $1.7M released for the owner
The contractor claimed $1.7M for additional works and delay. The defence focused on the fact that changes were performed without a written order and that the programme was already compromised before those changes.
The dispute
At completion, the contractor filed a claim for additional works, increased quantities and delay attributed to the owner. Its support was a folder of emails and verbal instructions.
What was at stake
Payment of $1.7M and, above all, the precedent: accepting undocumented changes turned any future project into an open risk for the owner.
The strategy
The sequence of changes was reconstructed from the site log, meeting minutes and correspondence, and expert evidence was commissioned to separate genuinely additional work from work already within the contractual scope. Evidence was organised by work item, not by assertion.
The outcome
The arbitral tribunal released the owner from the claim. The case rested on the absence of written orders and on the traceability of the programme.
On site, what is not written does not exist: the change order is the evidence, not the record of good faith.