Jurisdiction
England and Wales: delay and quantum
UK law is too broad a phrase when a page really means England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland are different systems, and City Inn is the standing reminder of why that matters.
- Jurisdiction
- England and Wales
- Law and editions as at
- 3 August 2026
- Last reviewed
- 3 August 2026
- Editorial status
- Editorial draft, not yet independently reviewed
The baseline rules this site applies
- Name the governing law precisely. England and Wales, not the UK.
- Explain extension of time, compensation and damages separately. A Relevant Event is not automatically a Relevant Matter.
- Treat form, edition and amendment as controlling. Nothing is assumed to be unamended.
- Present the prevention principle as operating through the contract, not as a general fairness discretion.
- Read the judgment, not the headnote, and never reduce a case to a slogan.
The cases that carry the weight
Judgment Multiplex v Honeywell (No 2) [2007] EWHC 447 (TCC) on prevention, time at large and effective extension machinery. Walter Lilly v Mackay [2012] EWHC 1773 (TCC) on concurrency, global claims and the value of records. North Midland v Cyden Homes [2018] EWCA Civ 1744 on express allocation of concurrent delay. Obrascon v Gibraltar [2014] EWHC 1028 (TCC) on FIDIC notice and programme proof. Van Oord v Allseas [2015] EWHC 3074 (TCC) on how liability, causation and quantification can each independently defeat a claim. Triple Point v PTT [2021] UKSC 29 on liquidated damages and termination.
What those cases are not
Walter Lilly is not authority that global claims always succeed. White Constructions is not English authority at all. City Inn is Scottish and has generally not been followed in England. A first-instance decision is persuasive rather than binding, and this site labels each one accordingly.
Expert evidence
Primary law CPR Part 35 and Practice Direction 35 govern expert evidence in civil proceedings. They set the overriding duty to the court, the required content of a report, and the treatment of instructions and assumptions.
Archived guidance
The RICS document on ascertaining loss and expense published in 2015 is archived. Archived guidance is useful historical context and must never be presented as current mandatory practice.
Where the record comes in
Every mechanism on this page turns on evidence: what happened, what was known and when. A record built as the job happens is worth more than any argument assembled afterwards. Construction Metric keeps that record automatically, from the messages, photographs and voice notes a site team already sends.
Built by AI Metric
The analysis on this site is only as fast as the evidence behind it. AI Metric builds bespoke systems for consultancies, contractors and claims teams: document and correspondence triage, event registers assembled from the project record, programme and cost reconciliation, and drafting support that always cites the document it came from. Built for review by your own experts, never to replace their judgement.
Do not overread this page
The cases are named and summarised for orientation. None is analysed in full here, appeal history is not stated on this page, and nothing on it is a view on how any authority applies to your facts.
General explanation of how contract mechanisms, analysis methods and legal principles generally work. It is not legal or contractual advice, not an opinion on any project, and no standard-form contract wording is reproduced anywhere on this site. Standard forms are routinely amended, so every default described here, including every time period, can be different on your project. Your executed contract, as amended, and the governing law and forum always control. Deadlines may already be running: if an event has occurred, preserve your position and take qualified advice.