ISSUES ON CONCURRENT DELAYS IN CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS USING SINGAPORE �S STANDARD FORMS OF CONTRACT: PROPOSED SUGGESTIONS AND COMPARISON WITH OTHER JURISDICTIONS

Abstract

Concurrent delay has always been a complicated issue to deal with due to its complexity and there are several past case law of disputes between the parties about Extension of Time (EOT) and Loss & Expenses (L&E) assessment and claims due to concurrent delays. Despite that, the relevant provisions in our local forms of contract are still either unclear and ambiguous or even missing from the forms. The issue of concurrent delay was still not fully addressed in our local standard forms despite several amendments made over the past decades.

Due to the absence of concurrent delays clauses in the local standard forms of contract, combined with the unsettled stand of Singapore’s court on concurrent delays, this dissertation aims to discuss and analyse the existing clauses in the different local standard forms of contract pertaining to concurrent delays, while comparing it to other countries’ standard forms and their approaches to dealing with concurrent delays. Also, to propose clearer and unbiased contractual provisions to be introduced in the standard forms. The proposed clauses aim to (1) define concurrent delay and (2) guide the relevant personnel to assess and decide the duration of EOT and amount of L&E to be awarded to the Contractor when it comes to concurrent delays. The author intends to reduce the number of potential disputes - that will be brought to arbitration due to concurrent delays - with the implementation of these proposed clauses through this dissertation.

Industry practitioners, namely lawyers who are Accredited Specialists with the Singapore Academy of Law (SAL), were interviewed to test and validate the hypotheses made in this study. Furthermore, additional literature reviews were done on areas that were mentioned and suggested by the interviewees. Based on the results from the data analysis of the hypotheses and new information obtained from the additional literature review, the proposed clauses for this research study were edited and finalised in the conclusion of the dissertation.