Page 103 - Civil Engineering Project Management, Fourth Edition
P. 103
Civil Engineering Project Management
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and are thus passed on to the sub-contractor in respect of his work. The sub-
contractor is ‘deemed to have full knowledge of the provisions of the main
contract’ and the contractor must give him a copy of it (without the prices) if
the sub-contractor requests it.
Of particular importance is Clause 3 of the CECA sub-contract which
requires the sub-contractor to carry out his work so as to avoid causing a breach
of the main contract by the contractor. He has to indemnify the contractor
‘against all claims, demands, proceedings, damages, costs and expenses made
against or incurred by the contractor by reason of any breach by the sub-
contractor of the sub-contract.’ But a sub-contractor undertaking a small value
contract may find it impossible to accept this clause. If he fails to complete
his work on time and this could possibly cause a delay to the whole project,
he might be liable to pay many thousands of pounds to the contractor – far in
excess of the value of his sub-contract.
A further problem for the engineer is that, if a dispute arises between the
contractor and his sub-contractor as to who is responsible for some defective
work, the defect can remain uncorrected until the dispute is resolved. If a
defect is found after the sub-contractor has left site and he is believed or known
to be responsible for it, the contractor may not be able to get the sub-contractor
back to site to remedy the defect, or to pay for its repair. To guard against this,
the contractor may therefore hold back full payment to the sub-contractor for
many months until a certificate of completion for the whole works is issued.
This will cause another dispute between contractor and sub-contractor.
The development of sub-contracting in civil engineering has therefore
brought both advantages and disadvantages. However, problems rarely arise if
the contractor can use sub-contractors he has worked with before whose work
has proved satisfactory and he treats them fairly.
