Delay and Disruption in Construction Contracts
Page 833
19
Total time, total loss and global claims
Introduction
“The expression ‘total cost’ is adopted only for those claims where [C] alleges a number of legal bases for financial compensation and claims as the measure of this compensation the difference between its total cost of performing the contract and payments received under the cont ract1. By analogy, a ‘total time claim’2 is the name given to a claim in which a number of legal bases for a time extension are alleged and [C] seeks as a time extension the difference between the number of days which the project took to complete less the time, including extensions allowed, provided in the contract. It will be immediately apparent that a total cost/time claim is a particular, albeit a very common, and certainly the most controversial, form of global claim. A total cost claim is one where the composite sum sought is computed by reference to the amount of money required to ensure that the total money received is not less than the total money expended, or expected to be expended on the project. By analogy, a total time claim is one where the time extension sought is calculated by reference to the time required to ensure that the total time allowed under the contract including any time extensions is not less than the total time actually spent on the project.”3