Sink or swim can contractors preserve contingency periods and who benefits from float

SCL(NZ) Essay Prize Winner 2nd place

Few contractors or principals could say that they have been involved in a project that did not run late or experience delays. A contractor’s entitlement to extensions of time, and costs associated with delay, are important issues in construction law. Concepts of critical paths, float and contingency periods, are essential to analysing extension of time claims, but are not well understood. The purpose of this essay is to explore and explain these concepts in the context of contract programming and extension of time claims.