Draft Expert Report On Construction Delay And Damages

---
name: draft-expert-report-on-construction-delay-and-damages
task_id: arbitration-international-dispute-resolution/draft-expert-report-on-construction-delay-and-damages
description: Ensures a construction delay expert report conducts a proper concurrency analysis, applies the relevant home office overhead methodology correctly, resolves float ownership under the contract, and logs all cross-document inconsistencies.
activates_for: [planner, solver, checker]
---

# Skill: Construction Delay and Damages Expert Report

## 1. Subject-matter triage

- Treat the assignment as a tribunal-facing expert report for construction delay, damages, and lost-profits analysis in international arbitration.
- First inventory the full source set and confirm whether there is one integrated chronology or multiple competing timelines, cost bases, or scope narratives.
- If the source documents contain more than one delay event, cost period, contract milestone, or damages theory, enumerate them before analysis and keep a separate row or subsection for each.
- If only one event or one damages strand is actually in scope, say so expressly and explain why the other potential categories are not analyzed.

## 2. Failure modes the skill is correcting

- Computes delay damages without first isolating each delay event and its critical-path effect, causing the report to blur distinct causation questions.
- Identifies overlap between owner-caused and contractor-caused delay but fails to deduct the overlapping period, overstating compensable delay.
- Applies home office overhead or similar head-office absorption logic without checking the correct billing base, project period, and approved extensions, producing a distorted daily rate.
- Treats float as automatically available to the claimant without first determining who owns it under the contract or schedule convention.
- States lost-profits or other downstream damages without tying them to the delay window, causation chain, and contractual or arbitral authority governing recoverability.
- Fails to reconcile differences among source files on dates, milestones, costs, completion status, scope, or mitigation, leaving the tribunal without a reliable source hierarchy.
- Writes conclusions as assertions rather than analysis, especially where a legal or damages proposition depends on a named authority or established practice rule.
- Omits a clear record of assumptions, exclusions, and uncertainty, making the expert opinion difficult to test.

## 3. Legal frameworks / domain conventions that apply

- Delay analysis must be anchored to critical path causation, not merely to chronological slippage; identify whether each event affected completion, a milestone, or a discrete workstream.
- Concurrency requires identification of overlapping delay periods and a judgment whether overlapping causes independently delayed the same critical path segment; the report should distinguish true concurrency from sequential delay.
- Float ownership depends on the contract and scheduling convention; the report must state the governing rule used and apply it before assigning compensability.
- Home office overhead should be presented through a transparent absorption or unabsorbed-overhead methodology, with the billing base, project duration, and compensable delay period clearly separated.
- Change-order or directive payments, if any, must be offset against the associated claimed amount to avoid double recovery.
- Lost profits, if claimed, must be tied to a recognized recoverability standard, including proximate cause, reasonable certainty, and any contractual limitation or arbitral constraint reflected in the record.
- Cross-document inconsistency analysis requires the report to identify conflicting versions, explain the effect of the conflict, and state which source is treated as controlling and why.
- Where the source record references legal standards, contract clauses, or arbitral rules, cite the controlling authority by name and section/article as the report states the proposition.

## 4. Analytical scaffolds

- Start with a concise expert identity, independence, instructions, and scope statement.
- Set out the project background: parties only as the record uses them, contract structure, milestones, baseline schedule, and any revisions relevant to delay or cost.
- Build a chronology that separates contractual milestones, actual progress, delay events, suspension periods, extensions, change directives, and completion/termination markers.
- For each delay event:
  - describe the event,
  - identify the affected work or milestone,
  - assess critical-path impact,
  - assign responsibility,
  - note any mitigation or acceleration evidence,
  - state the time impact and how it was measured.
- For overlapping delay events:
  - compare the affected periods,
  - determine whether they are truly concurrent,
  - isolate the overlapping window,
  - deduct or exclude that window from compensable delay where the governing rule requires it.
- For float:
  - identify the contractual or scheduling convention,
  - determine who owns the float,
  - explain whether the claimed delay exhausted or merely consumed available float,
  - state the effect on compensability.
- For overhead and delay-related damages:
  - use a clear stepwise method,
  - identify the relevant cost pool or billing base,
  - confirm the correct project performance period,
  - apply the delay period only after excluding non-compensable overlap or excluded days,
  - state the resulting allocation without compressing the steps.
- For lost profits:
  - separate past lost profits, future lost profits, and any revenue-related claim,
  - identify the causal link to the delay or disruption,
  - state the basis for projection, assumptions, and any record support,
  - address mitigation, offset, and uncertainty.
- For partial payments or offsets:
  - identify any payment already made on the same item,
  - deduct it from the claimed amount,
  - explain the netting logic.
- For each inconsistency:
  - quote or paraphrase the conflicting versions only as needed and avoid unnecessary repetition,
  - state the source hierarchy,
  - explain the chosen version,
  - identify the impact on the calculation or opinion.
- Where a proposition depends on law, contract text, or arbitral practice, name the authority and section/article rather than stating the conclusion bare.

## 5. Vertical / structural / temporal relationships

- Preserve the hierarchy from project fact to schedule analysis to delay causation to quantum, rather than mixing them in a single narrative.
- Keep temporal order explicit: baseline, variation, delay event, overlap, mitigation, extension, completion, and damages period.
- Distinguish vertical relationships between parent project milestones and subordinate work packages so that a delay to a subpackage is not mistaken for project completion delay.
- Distinguish horizontal relationships among parallel workstreams, especially where one stream may be delayed while another remains unaffected.
- When the record contains competing dates or amounts, present both versions, identify the downstream effect, and then state the authoritative version used for the calculation.

## 6. Output structure conventions

- Tribunal-ready expert report with:
  - title page and expert identification;
  - qualifications, independence, instructions, and materials relied upon;
  - executive summary of opinions;
  - project background and chronology;
  - methodology for delay, concurrency, float, and quantum;
  - detailed delay analysis by event;
  - concurrency and float analysis;
  - damages analysis, including overhead and any lost-profits theory;
  - offsets, mitigation, and adjustments;
  - cross-document inconsistency log;
  - assumptions, limitations, and reservations;
  - concluding opinions.
- Use clear headings and subheadings that mirror the analytical sequence, not a checklist copied from the source instructions.
- For every distinct issue or event, state the scale of the issue, cross-reference interacting documents or clauses, and explain the practical consequence for the damages opinion.
- Include a plain-language reconciliation note wherever source files diverge on dates, costs, progress, or scope.
- If the report depends on a legal or contractual proposition, cite the authority in-line and tie it to the specific analysis point.
- Keep the report self-contained and tribunal-ready; do not assume the tribunal will infer missing steps or supply omitted calculations.