Project AssureNEC4 is built on a simple philosophy: deal with change as it happens, together, on a forecast basis. Its engine for that is the compensation event (CE). And treating it like a traditional end-of-job claim is how contractors forfeit money they were owed.
What is the NEC4 early-warning obligation, and why does it come before a compensation event?
Before a CE, there is the early-warning obligation (Clause 15). Either party must notify matters that could increase cost, delay completion or impair performance, and manage them in a live register at early-warning meetings. It is not paperwork: failure to give an early warning a contractor could have given can reduce the CE assessment to what it would have been had the warning been given. Silence is expensive.
How long does a contractor have to notify a compensation event under NEC4?
A contractor must notify a compensation event within eight weeks of becoming aware of it. Miss that, and (unless the Project Manager should have notified it) entitlement to time and money can be lost entirely. Diarising CE awareness from the first sign of an event is not administration; it is entitlement protection.
How are compensation events assessed, and why does that make the Accepted Programme decisive?
CEs are assessed by quotation, the contractor forecasts the effect on the Prices and on planned Completion, using the Accepted Programme. Two consequences follow:
- The Accepted Programme is decisive. A programme that is not accepted, or that fails a DCMA 14-point check, undermines every CE quotation that relies on it.
- Assessment is by forecast, using Time Impact Analysis: so the quality of the contemporaneous programme, not a retrospective reconstruction, drives entitlement.
Under NEC4, the money follows the discipline: register early warnings, notify CEs on time, and keep the Accepted Programme clean. Everything else is downstream of those three habits.
How does Project Assure help with compensation event and early-warning discipline?
Our planning, controls and claims team runs CE and early-warning discipline as a live process, not a retrospective exercise. Our NEC4 vs FIDIC note compares the two routes to entitlement.
