Managing Delay and Impact Claims in Construction for 2026

Jason Annibale, Partner, McMillan LLP
Meera Wagman, Managing Director, Secretariat International

10:15 a.m. Managing Delay Claims and Defences/Quantification for Loss of Productivity: What’s New, What’s Important for 2026

This session will provide you with 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 2026
• How and why managing delays and claims has become more ‘defensive’ and intricate in the face of ongoing market uncertainty and global impacting events
• What you need to know now about an owner’s relative position, including why owners typically defend these claims, not initiate them
• Proactive risk management insights and best practices 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 2026
• What contractors and subcontractors need to prove despite a climate of ongoing market uncertainty
• Approaches for ‘telling your delay and impact story,’ recording essential details, identifying and overcoming weaknesses in methodology, organizing documents, and communicating effectively, both internally and with the other side, including valuable tips and “lessons learned”

Maged Abdelsayed, Partner, HKA Global

11:30 a.m. Break

11:45 a.m. Overcoming Key Challenges when Working with Delay Experts for 2026

• Overview of key issues and challenges for 2026
• 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

Ali Al-Ahmad, Senior Managing Director, Head of Canada Construction, Projects & Assets, FTI Consulting
Melissa Di Marco, Partner, Accuracy

1:15 p.m. Lunch Break

2:15 p.m. “You Want it When?” How to Deal with an Unrealistic Schedule

• “You want it when?” Setting the schedule – how is a schedule ideally determined?
• “Getting real” with the unrealistic schedule
• Ensuring proper planning despite an owner’s rush to build
• Avoiding the fall-out after starting the project with “rose-coloured glasses”
• Notice:
  • Why do we need it? What’s the expectation for 2026?
  • Why are owners and the courts getting so sticky about late notice or no notice at all?
  • How to give notice in a manner which complies with the contract but doesn’t impair the relationship – how to avoid common pitfalls
• Upstream/downstream claims (i.e. double-dipping)
• “The contractor is delaying me. What do I do?”
• How to manage finger-pointing and get the job done?

Moderator:
Geza Banfai, Counsel, McMillan LLP
Panel:
Janet Oh, Chief Legal Officer, WSP Canada
Marcia Oliver, General Counsel, VP Legal and Indigenous Relations, Bennett Group
Rob Pattison, Principal, Rob Pattison Consulting, and former Public Infrastructure Executive

3:30 p.m. Break

3:45 p.m. The Decision-Makers’ Speak: Adjudicating the Delay Claim for 2026

• The evidence the adjudicator looks for (hint: it’s not the expert!)
• What about industry studies re productivity loss: Do they have any use at all?
• How the expert can help – and hurt – the process
• How do get an expert report admitted or tossed
• “The best expert I ever saw…”
• Do’s and don’ts and pet peeves

Moderators:
Jason Annibale, Partner, McMillan LLP
Meera Wagman, Managing Director, Secretariat International
Panel:
Associate Justice Todd Robinson, Ontario Superior Court of Justice
Chris O’Connor KC, Principal, O’Connor Alternative Dispute Resolution
Edward (Ted) Dreyer, Partner, Bennett Grant LLP, and Certified Adjudicator, Ontario Dispute Adjudication for Construction Contracts

5:00 p.m. Wrap-up and Key Takeaways

Jason Annibale, Partner, McMillan LLP
Meera Wagman, Managing Director, Secretariat International

5:15 p.m. Program Concludes

5:30 p.m. Post-Program Non-Sponsored Networking / Drinks Thing at Joey’s Restaurant Eaton Centre (right next door to Osgoode’s facility at 1 Dundas St West)