Managing Delay and Impact Claims in Construction

Maged Abdelsayed
Partner, HKA Global

You will get the latest practical and technical knowledge, insights and expert tips to better manage or defend common types of delay claims, with distinctions for owners, contractors and subcontractors.

• What’s new and what’s happening for 2024
• How and why managing delays and claims has become more ‘defensive’ and intricate in the face of ongoing global impacting events
• Proactive risk management strategies for contractors and subcontractors to prepare their cases/claims, including how they are similar and how they are distinct and how to avoid common missteps
• Technical aspects
  • What owners need to prove – the expectations for 2024
  • What contractors and subcontractors need to prove in a climate of market uncertainty
• ‘Telling your delay and impact story’ – including recording essential details, identifying and overcoming weaknesses in methodology, organizing documents, and communicating effectively

10:45 a.m.
Break

Seema Lal
Singleton Reynolds LLP

Janet Oh
Chief Legal Officer, WSP

This multidisciplinary panel will share their insights, tips and best practices on how to overcome key challenges involving an unrealistic schedule, including:

• “You want it when?” Setting the schedule – how a schedule is ideally determined
• “Getting real” with the unrealistic schedule – lessons learned and troubleshooting tips
• Ensuring proper planning despite an owner’s rush to build or mitigating any fall‑out
• Notice for 2024 ‑ why do we need it and what’s the expectation? How and why the issue of notice is a focal point for owners and the courts alike, and how to give notice in a manner that complies with the contract but doesn’t impair the relationship
• What to do about upstream/downstream claims (i.e. double‑dipping)
• “The contractor is delaying me. What do I do?”

12:30 p.m.
Lunch

Ali Al‑Ahmad
Senior Managing Director, Head of Canada Construction, Projects & Assets, FTI Consulting

Melissa DiMarco
Partner, Accuracy

• Overview of key issues and challenges for 2024
• Managing conflicts of interest
• How can the expert best add value to the client?
• Considerations in choosing the methodology for calculating the claim
• Managing the lawyer who retains you
• Managing the court/arbitration panel
• Ethical issues
• Loss of productivity
• Disruption claims
• Concurrent delay

3:00 p.m.
Break

Associate Justice Todd Robinson
Ontario Superior Court of Justice

Edward (Ted) Dreyer
Madorin, Snyder LLP, and Certified Adjudicator, Ontario Dispute Adjudication for Construction Contracts

Chris O’Connor KC
Principal, O’Connor Alternative Dispute Resolution

You will hear from decision‑makers who preside over delay and impact claims, including a Judge, Mediator, Arbitrator and Adjudicator. This exceptional panel will discuss practical elements and their top tips to enhance your efforts in each type of proceeding, including:

• The evidence the adjudicator looks for (hint: it’s not the expert!)
• Industry studies about productivity loss – do they have any use at all?
• Strategies for effectively using facts, body language and technology
• “The best expert I ever saw…” – including how the expert can help or hurt your case, and how to get an expert report admitted or tossed
• Do’s and don’ts and pet peeves to stay on the “good side” of the decision‑maker

April 10, 2024, 1:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Workshop will be live only, and not recorded.
The facilitated workshop will include two 15 minute breaks.

Niamh Ní Chróinín
Senior Director, Ankura

Program Chairs and Advisor

Put into practice what you learned in the program, or in your own practice, and take advantage of the rare opportunity to get facilitated experience and personalized support in working through some key and emerging challenges arising in a delay claim fact scenario for 2024. Activities and practical discussion may include:

• Overview of how to complete your own analysis and draft your own claim, using a unique fact scenario
• Review of key definitions and mechanisms, and insights for developing a proactive mindset when approaching a delay claim
• Strategies for developing/maintaining effective documentation and dealing with common pitfalls
• Walk‑through of a schedule with overlapping red lines, understanding what this means and the impacts to the critical path
• Techniques for developing simple graphs and why they are so persuasive (even if no formal schedule analysis)
• Comprehending the key challenges/sticking points of schedule analysis and tips for overcoming them, including for cross‑checking site diaries
• Grasping the various costs associated with schedule
• Problem‑solving strategies for bridging gaps where limited or poor information is available

Included with your registration (program or workshop), these on demand modules cover core concepts for those who are newer to the area or those who may benefit from a succinct refresher. We recommend viewing all three online modules before attending the program or workshop.

Module One – The Legal Context and Key Principles Surrounding Delay Claims
(52 mins, on demand, recorded in 2021)
Jason Annibale
Andrea Lee

Get a practical overview of the legal context and key principles that you need to know when dealing with delay claims to enhance your working knowledge.

Module Two – Working with Experts in Delay Claims: What You Need to Know
(48 mins, on demand, recorded in 2021)
Glenn Ackerley

Gain a practical understanding of how to work effectively with experts in delay claims, including the state of the law and the industry, common pitfalls to watch out for.

Module Three – Overview of Six Methods for Calculating Delay and Impact Losses
(~60 mins, available on demand by March 25, 2024)
Meera Wagman

Get a practical overview of the six most common delay analysis methods: time impact, collapsed as‑built, time slice windows, as‑planned versus as‑built windows, longest path, impacted as planned.