Management of Dispute Factors in Engineering Contracts and the Proposed Remedies

Abstract

Generally, most projects are not completed within time, cost, scope for various reasons, and this is accompanied by the emergence of disputes among the contracting parties. Disputes occurred as a result of failure to define the scope of work accurately by the employer which will be followed by the inaccuracy of the time and the estimated cost of the project, the imbalance of prices submitted by the contractors and the unrealistic data of the project activities schedule and the material supply schedule, the selection of contractors without suitable criteria, non-availability of the required financial allocations within the specified times, lack of integration between technical and legal departments in preparing the draft contract to reach a common opinion, lack of experience of executive or supervisory employees in dealing with disputes that occur during the course of work, which leads to their escalation. Four case studies related to dispute in construction contracts which have been resolved by the court were investigated. Triggers for these disputes were discrepancies in change order evaluation as a result of undefined or an accurate project scope, unsuitable site conditions, double meaning of specifications, design mistakes and excessive contract quantities fluctuation, unavailable financial allocations and the subcontractor's lack of experience on similar projects, as well as the main contractor's lack of expertise and capability are the reasons with importance weighting in these case studies. Therefore, taking proactive steps for the purpose of minimizing these disputes and their negative effects through preparing realistic feasibility studies for projects and allocating sufficient time for these studies, in addition to activate the role of surveying engineers and qualifying them to play their effective role in determining quantities and prices accurately and using specialized engineering programs in addition to modern methods of calculating Project completion rates using Earned Value.