Disruption without delay is common. Treating disruption as the claim is the mistake.
Disruption is routinely misunderstood in construction claims. By its nature, disruption does not require delay and may never extend the Contractual Completion Date.
Works can be disrupted by restricted access, fragmented possession or altered sequencing and still complete on time. That happens every day on complex projects. The error is not recognising disruption. The error is stopping the analysis there.
The decision in CPB Contractors Pty Limited v Transport for NSW is a useful reference point because it shows what happens when disruption is treated as an entitlement rather than tested against the contract. In CPB, the contractor sought to recover disruption costs under a clause that only priced delay by reference to an extension of the completion date. Disruption that did not extend completion had no contractual footing and was struck out. The case does not deny that disruption occurs. It demonstrates that, under that contract, disruption was only compensable if it delayed completion.
That distinction matters. Disruption may exist without delay, but that does not make it recoverable. Claimants often jump straight to disruption as a label and then try to monetise impact. In doing so, they miss the real issue.
Where disruption flows from a breach of a contractual promise, such as failure to provide access as expressly stated in the contract, the correct question is not whether productivity was affected. The question is whether the breach required the contractor to perform work that was different from what the contract required. If it did, the problem is not inefficiency. The work itself has changed.
A disciplined way to analyse it
Start with the contract, not the impact. Identify the promise expressly stated in the contract. Access by a stated date. Exclusive possession. An all-weather haul road. A defined sequence or work front. These are not assumptions. They define the contractual baseline.
Next, establish compliance. Was that promise met. Was access late, partial, fragmented or conditional. This is a records exercise, not a narrative one.
Then ask the only question that matters. Did the departure from what was stated in the contract require the contractor to perform the work differently. This is where many claims fail.
If the contractor carried out the same work in the same way but less efficiently, the impact is often described as disruption. Under contracts like the one considered in CPB, that type of impact has no compensable footing unless it extends completion.
If, however, the breach forced resequencing, split work fronts, temporary access, remobilisation, double handling or alternative construction methods, the contractor was no longer performing the work required by the contract. The work had changed.
Once that is recognised, the characterisation becomes straightforward. This is not a disruption claim. It is a claim for altered work arising from a breach of a contractual promise. Properly analysed, it is a variation or work treated as varied by conduct. It should be pursued and valued through the variation machinery, not forced into a delay regime that was never designed to price it.
“This distinction only holds if it is supported by evidence. Daily records establish ,what was delivered and how the work changed. Notices fix the issue in real time. Cost records allow the altered work to be measured and valued as it occurs. Without that discipline, even a correctly characterised claim becomes vulnerable. ”
The Point
Disruption without delay is common. Disruption without delay is often not compensable.
Where disruption arises from a breach of a contractual promise, the real issue is frequently not disruption at all. It is whether the breach changed the work priced under the contract.
Claimants who identify that early, and prove it with records, notices and costs, give courts something they can actually decide.
At Accura Consulting, our team of experts work with clients to create a tailored solution to problems. If you have an issue and want expert support, get in touch.
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