Force Majeure, Hardship & Termination in Construction Contracts Training Course

Course Overview

Learning Objectives

• Distinguish force majeure, hardship, frustration, employer risk events, and an employer's own decision to reschedule or stop a project.
• Interpret force majeure and Exceptional Events provisions in FIDIC 1999 and 2017, and identify how bespoke amendments change them.
• Assess how the governing law affects relief, including common law frustration and civil law force majeure and hardship concepts.
• Test whether a specific event meets the contractual criteria, including causation, foreseeability, avoidability, and the actual effect on performance.
• Prepare notices and supporting evidence that preserve rights from the first sign of a disruptive event through its continuing effects.
• Apply the duty to mitigate, and document reasonable efforts to reduce delay, cost, and damage during a disruptive event.
• Evaluate the time and cost relief available under the contract, and separate the costs that are recoverable from those that are not.
• Plan suspension, demobilization, preservation of the works, and remobilization, and allocate their costs through the contract.
• Manage rescheduling and re-baselining of a project through agreed amendments that protect both the program and the parties' positions.
• Evaluate hardship relief and renegotiation options, including price adjustment, re-phasing, and revised contract risk allocation.
• Compare the routes to termination: contractor default, convenience, contractor rights, and optional termination after prolonged events.
• Execute termination procedures correctly, covering notices, site handover, valuation, bonds, guarantees, and subcontract consequences.
• Prepare a termination account, and assess negotiated exit and settlement against the likely cost and risk of formal dispute.

Who Should Attend

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
• Classify a disruptive event as force majeure, hardship, frustration, an employer risk, or an employer decision, and explain the consequences of each classification.
• Interpret force majeure and Exceptional Events provisions in FIDIC 1999 and 2017 conditions and bespoke amendments.
• Explain how the governing law can change the relief available, and when specializt legal advice is needed.
• Test an event against contractual criteria, including causation, foreseeability, avoidability, and effect, and reach a reasoned conclusion on relief.
• Draft notices and evidence plans that preserve rights while an event and its effects continue.
• Document mitigation efforts and identify the time and cost relief that can be supported by the project's records.
• Prepare a hardship case and a renegotiation position for a rescheduled or re-phased project.
• Plan suspension, demobilization, preservation of the works, and later remobilization, with a clear allocation of their costs.
• Agree a new baseline program with amendments that protect the parties' positions when work resumes on site.
• Choose the appropriate termination route and follow its procedure without wrongful termination.
• Prepare a termination account covering work done, materials, demobilization, bonds, and guarantees, with supporting records for each item.
• Compare negotiated exit with formal dispute, and record a clear settlement that closes the agreed matters.

Course Outline