Key takeaways

• A particularly contentious area of construction law is which party to a contract bears responsibility for the time and cost consequences of concurrent delay – i.e., where both the owner and contractor have caused delay to completion at the same time.
• Different jurisdictions take different approaches to concurrent delay. The English law position is that the contractor is awarded an extension of time, but not prolongation costs. Other jurisdictions allow time and costs to be apportioned between the owner and contractor.
• The recent case of North Midland v Cyden has confirmed that parties can avoid uncertainty by agreeing that the contractor will bear the risk of concurrent delay.