Project Assure
What does an EOT claim consultant do on a UAE project?
An extension of time is won on records and method, not on the strength of the grievance. Our work on a UAE claim follows the same sequence whether we act for the contractor or test a claim for an employer or engineer:
- Programme testing and repair. The baseline and updates are checked for logic, constraints and progress accuracy before any analysis relies on them.
- Critical delay investigation. The events that drove critical delay are identified and traced through the programme and the contemporaneous record.
- Entitlement review. Entitlement is tested against the contract's time and notice provisions, not against what the parties would like the contract to say.
- Delay analysis. Contemporaneous time impact analysis, windows and time-slice analysis, or planned against actual comparison, chosen for the records rather than for the number it produces.
- Claims and dispute support. Delay narratives, prolongation and disruption inputs, and review of the opposing analysis through negotiation, dispute board, arbitration or court.
Which contracts and rules govern EOT claims in the UAE?
Most UAE works contracts are FIDIC-based. Under the 1999 Red Book, extension of time sits in Sub-Clause 8.4 and the contractor's claims procedure in Sub-Clause 20.1. Under the 2017 Red Book, they sit in Sub-Clause 8.5 and Clause 20. Particular Conditions often limit or remove the dispute board, so notices and records carry more weight, and bespoke Emirati forms change the mechanism again. We read entitlement through the contract actually signed and align the analysis with the SCL Delay and Disruption Protocol and AACE RP 29R-03.
Onshore contracts are governed by the Civil Transactions Law, now Federal Decree-Law No. 25 of 2025 from 1 June 2026, replacing Federal Law No. 5 of 1985. The new law is not generally retrospective, but its transitional rules can reach the performance, remedies and limitation periods of earlier contracts, so both codes may matter for a contract signed before that date. We confirm the position with your legal advisers before setting out how delay responsibility is treated.
How is concurrent delay treated in the UAE?
A UAE-law tribunal may be able to apportion responsibility where both parties caused delay, rather than following the English approach to concurrency reflected in the SCL Protocol. That makes the evidence of what was actually critical, and when, even more important. We separate employer-caused delay from concurrent contractor causes period by period and present findings a tribunal can apply under more than one approach. Our note on concurrent delay by month three explains why weak records punish concurrency arguments in particular.
Where are UAE EOT disputes decided?
Arbitrations are commonly referred to DIAC in Dubai under its 2022 Rules, which absorbed the former DIFC-LCIA centre in 2021, or to arbitrateAD in Abu Dhabi under its 2024 Rules, seated onshore under Federal Law No. 6 of 2018 on Arbitration or in the DIFC or ADGM. Others proceed in the UAE courts. In each forum we provide the programme and delay evidence, built from the contemporaneous record and aligned with the quantum, and work with your counsel, who advise on the law.
When should you appoint an EOT claim consultant in the UAE?
While the delay is live. The signals are the same on either side of the contract: the programme has slipped beyond float, FIDIC Clause 20 notices are going out with a thin or reactive paper trail, two or more delay events are running together, prolongation or liquidated damages are being signalled, or variations are accumulating faster than they are assessed. Engaged at month three, an independent consultant can still fix the record. At month thirty, the analysis is a reconstruction from fragments. Our guide on when to bring in an EOT claim consultant sets out the signals in full, and the EOT claim readiness checklist covers the notices, records and programme evidence a claim needs before it is submitted.
Two roles, kept separate
Clients appoint us in one of two roles, and we never combine them on the same matter. As party-appointed support, we analyse the records, build the programme and delay evidence, and help you and your counsel prepare and test your position, built so the other side can test it. As an independent expert, our duty is to the tribunal or board, agreed in a separate appointment, and our conclusions do not change with the party that appoints us. We check for conflicts before accepting any appointment.
Our UAE and GCC references
On Etihad Rail Stage 2 and 3 in the UAE we provided independent systems assurance across construction and commissioning, tying design milestones to construction readiness. On Hafeet Rail, a rail programme in Oman, we produced a forensic windows analysis that separated design-change impacts from concurrent contractor causes and set out a structured, substantiated EOT entitlement. We work across rail and metro, aviation, waterfront and real estate, energy and utilities, and giga-projects in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and the wider Emirates.
