A 'global claim' is a claim that aggregates the cost or time consequences of a number of events without attempting to attribute specific consequences to specific events. Core Principle 17 of the SCL Delay and Disruption Protocol treats global claims with significant caution, and tribunals in the Middle East have followed suit.
The classic global claim presents the tribunal with a list of alleged employer-risk events, a total amount of additional cost or delay, and an invitation to award the full amount on the basis that all of the listed events contributed to the loss in some indeterminate way. The fundamental difficulty with such claims is causation: the contractor has not demonstrated that any particular event caused any particular consequence.
The Protocol acknowledges that there may be limited circumstances in which a global claim is the only practicable way of presenting a claim — for example where the cumulative effect of many small events makes individual analysis impossible or disproportionate. However, even in those cases, the Protocol expects the contractor to demonstrate that the entire loss claimed was caused by the employer-risk events relied upon, and that no part of the loss was caused by contractor-risk events.
This burden is high. If the tribunal finds that any material part of the loss was caused by contractor-risk events (or by any other cause for which the employer is not responsible), the entire global claim may fail. Tribunals have consistently held that a global claim is an 'all or nothing' approach, and that the contractor takes the risk of the analysis.
In the Middle East, global claims are frequently encountered on troubled projects where the contractor has failed to maintain adequate contemporaneous records and has not pursued individual claims as events arose. A delay expert witness asked to opine on a global claim will typically look first for any opportunity to analyse the components individually, and will only resort to a true global analysis where no other approach is feasible.
The lesson for contractors is clear: pursue claims incrementally, maintain proper records, and avoid the global claim approach wherever possible. The lesson for employers is equally clear: a global claim is a defensible target, and proper engagement with the underlying detail will often expose its weaknesses.