Van Oord v Allseas: A Decade On and Still a Warning For Quantum Experts
It is now more than ten years since Van Oord UK Ltd v Allseas UK Ltd was decided, but I still see the same mistakes the court exposed in that case appearing in quantum reports today.
The judgment matters because the court did not merely criticise an expert’s approach. It rejected the claimant’s quantum evidence in full and explained, step by step, why it could not be relied upon. Those reasons remain directly relevant to any quantity surveyor acting as an expert witness.
Looking back, the case reads like a checklist of what goes wrong when experts drift away from their proper role.
What Went Wrong?
The expert accepted the claim instead of analysing it
The court found that the quantum expert took the claimant’s pleaded case at face value. He did not test it against the contemporaneous records that supported or undermined it. Rates were adopted because they were said to have been agreed elsewhere, not because they had been independently assessed (para 81).
From an expert perspective, that is the first mistake. Once you start with the claim rather than the evidence, everything that follows is compromised.
Only one side of the evidence was considered
The judge was clearly troubled by the fact that the expert prepared his report by reviewing only the claimant’s witness statements. He did not engage with the opposing evidence at all. In some instances, disputed assertions were lifted directly into the report as if they were established facts (para 82).
At that point, independence has already been lost. An expert cannot assist the court if they only look in one direction.
Assumptions were hidden rather than tested
The expert valued the claim on one basis only, namely the claimant’s full case. He refused to provide alternative valuations based on different factual assumptions, despite encouragement from the court to do so. When key assumptions failed under cross examination, the valuation collapsed because there were no alternative figures (para 83).
In my experience, this is one of the most common and most avoidable errors. Courts are not asking experts to predict outcomes. They are asking them to show consequences.
Actual loss was never addressed
One of the most telling criticisms was that the expert never tested the claim against actual cost. He did not ask whether any real loss had been suffered at all. The judge said this created the impression that the claim was a try on rather than a compensatory exercise (para 84).
Whatever the contractual mechanism, actual cost remains a critical sense check. Ignoring it weakens credibility immediately.
The evidence unravelled under cross examination
As cross examination progressed, the expert conceded error after error, many of which had already been identified by the opposing expert months earlier. Eventually he accepted that he was not happy with any of his reports. The judge said that once an expert disowns their own work, the court cannot sensibly rely on it (paras 85 to 86).
That moment ended the evidence. Once confidence is lost, it is not recovered.
The schedules were not truly the expert’s work
The court was also critical of schedules appended to the report that the expert had not prepared and had not properly checked. Some had been produced by the claimant or its consultants, yet were presented as if they were the expert’s own work. Authorship and verification were blurred (paras 88 to 90).
As an expert, if I cannot stand behind a schedule as my own checked work, it should not be in my report.
Expert opinion was used to patch a weak factual case
Perhaps the most serious criticism was that new assertions appeared in expert materials after factual witnesses had already failed under cross examination. Those assertions were drawn from discussions with those same witnesses. The judge described this as a subterfuge and the opposite of independent expert conduct (paras 89 to 90).
An expert is not there to repair a failing factual case. Once that line is crossed, the evidence is finished.
There was no sense check against reasonableness
Finally, the expert never tested the claimed figures against fair and reasonable rates, even as a cross check. The judge said that omission alone rendered the valuation exercise of no value (para 92).
If the numbers do not pass a basic reasonableness test, the court will not trust them.
What should have happened instead
With the benefit of hindsight, the correct approach is clear.
The expert should have started with the documents, not the claim. Both sides’ evidence should have been reviewed, with disputed facts clearly identified rather than assumed.
Assumptions should have been exposed and tested. Alternative valuations should have been provided so the court could see how the numbers changed depending on its findings.
Actual cost should have been analysed, even if it was not the contractual measure. It remains the best sense check on whether loss has genuinely been suffered.
Every schedule included should have been demonstrably the expert’s own work, fully checked and understood.
Most importantly, the expert should have been willing to say when parts of the claim could not be supported. That may reduce the headline figure, but it preserves credibility.
The lesson that still matters
More than a decade on, Van Oord v Allseas remains a warning because the mistakes it exposed are still familiar.
Courts do not want advocates in expert clothing. They want independent analysis that helps them decide what loss, if any, has been proven.
When experts forget that, the court does not trim their evidence back.
It disregards it entirely.
https://www.casemine.com/judgement/uk/5a8ff74a60d03e7f57eaaed4
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