NEC ECC: Early warning

If the Contractor communicates a change which is required and has been delayed with extra costs with the client and carries out the work at a lot of extra cost and later when putting in a claim for the extra time and cost, the PM states that no early warning was received, the contractor then states the client was told about their concerns.

If an early warning was given Does the PM accept this? And if he does what happens.

Also what if an early warning was not given to the Client and this were an informal conversation?

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Early warnings are between the Project Manager and Contractor, not the Client, Supervisor or, for that matter, Subcontractors, so the whether the Contractor ‘told’ the Client is contractually irrelevant.

In the absence of an early warning, the question becomes what would the savings have been if the Contractor had given an early warning ? If the PM can reasonably state that he or she would have instructed the Contractor to do something different than the Contractor actually did & hence save the Client money &/or time, then the PM should state this when instructing a quotation - see clause 61.5 - and the event is assessed as if the Contractor had given early warning and these actions were implemented - see clause 63.7. i.e. the Contractor gets less.

Otherwise, it makes no difference.