Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
and finishes that piece of work in half the time, it is unlikely to have a major or any effect
on the completion date of the Works as a whole. The chances are that the main contractor
will also cause some delays which will obviously affect the sub-contractors. It is impos-
sibleforthemaincontractortocalculateasuitablesumrepresentingagenuinepre-estimate
of the loss likely to be sustained by the main contractor if any or all of these sub-contract-
ors fail, through their own fault, to meet their individual completion dates. Even if it was
known that just one of the sub-contractors would fail to meet its completion date, the cal-
culation of resulting loss to the main contractor would be difficult to do after the event and
wouldcertainlynotbepossiblebefore.Therefore,thesub-contractorshouldbeabletosuc-
cessfully challenge the whole basis and amount of liquidated damages. Where several sub-
contractors are in delay, the problem is magnified. Main contractors have been known to
insert as the liquidated damages for each sub-contractor the amount of liquidated damages
which the main contractor is liable to pay under the main contract. It takes but a moment's
thought to see that such an approach is completely untenable.
It is no coincidence that all the standard form sub-contracts which have been produced
provide for unliquidated damages only. In other words, they all acknowledge that the main
contractor will have to prove that a sub-contractor was late through its own fault and the
amount of damages suffered thereby.
