How to Avoid Global Claims - A Quantum Expert Guide
When drafting a quantum and/or delay claim based on several events, claimants commonly use inference rather than causation to build their arguments.
This approach is sometimes used by claimants as they tend to focus on the monetary amounts lost and/or the delays they have incurred, rather than identifying causation.
These types of claims can be known as “Global” or “Total Cost Claims”. Global claims are where the claimant does not provide evidence to prove a causal link between its losses and the actions of the respondent. The claimant puts forward a collection of events and a total amount of loss (monetary and time) incurred and argues that the events in their totality have caused the loss.
Global claims are allowed so long as several prerequisites are met, such as:
All preconditions for making a claim set out in the contract must be satisfied.
Sufficient particulars to enable the respondent to identify the case against it.
Where there are matters that the respondent is not responsible for that are significant to the delay claimed, these must be accounted for in the claim.
Any part of the claim capable of separation and for which a causative link can be identified should not form part of the global claim.
As a matter of course, the claimant must provide sufficient evidence to support the losses claimed.
The above list is in no way exhaustive but does provide high-level guidance from a pragmatic and logical point of view. If a claimant cannot meet all the points listed above; a global claim will generally fail.
Often a claim submitted as “global” does not meet the general requirements outlined previously and is not deemed a global claim but an ambit, lazy, or just a "bad claim". There are occasions from a strategic point of view where a claimant may put together such a claim. The claimant may choose to submit a such a claim due to either lack of time, information, or ability. In most case the respondent easily rebuts these types of claims.
To avoid rebuttals and achieve success, claims need to be untangled, and you need to dig deeper to identify the causation.
