ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews some of the authorities concerning "global claims". A global claim, in its crudest form, alleges that the entire difference between the contractor's tender price and his actual costs has arisen from a number of breaches by the employer, and makes little or no attempt to link the alleged effects to individual breaches. In the event that the contractor has himself made a material contribution to this increase in costs, either by under-pricing his tender, by his own inefficiencies or otherwise, the employer would be unduly penalised if the courts were to accept such a claim without imposing strict conditions. The courts have therefore chosen to reject global claims where the employer has been able to show that the contractor has made more than a trivial contribution to the alleged damage. The expression 'global claim' has normally been used in Scotland, England and other Commonwealth countries to denote a claim calculated in the foregoing manner.
