The Society of Construction Law Delay and Disruption Protocol, first published in October 2002, describes itself as “providing useful guidance on some of the common issues which arise on construction contracts, where one party wishes to recover from the other an EOT and/or compensation for the additional time spent.” Further, we are told that “the purpose of the Protocol is to provide a means by which the parties can resolve these matters and avoid unnecessary disputes.”
Over 5 years on, working almost exclusively in the realms of delay-related issues, the speaker.author has rarely seen the Protocol employed. Where it has been, the practice has been to ‘cherry-pick’ Protocol guidance which suits one side of an argument, perhaps at the same time ‘playing down’ any conflict which there may be with the contract under which the parties are working.
Ian Duncan-Wallace was highly critical of the Protocol in its draft form (and the changes which were made to the finally published Protocol were arguably insufficient to address these criticisms). This paper, based on the talk to members look at how improvements may be made to the Protocol – perhaps in an attempt to make it more viable and give it the vitality it seemingly currently lacks.