Build Conex has announced that it now provides independent quantum and delay expert reports for construction disputes, combining causation, delay and quantum analysis into a single court-ready report prepared by one expert using one methodology. The reports are produced by the firm's Principal, who is prepared to provide testimony and defend the findings under cross-examination.
Construction disputes frequently involve contractors or subcontractors seeking payment on amounts that can range from one million to fifty million or more. These matters commonly combine claims for delay and disruption, variation claims and prolongation costs. The scale of the figures and the volume of documentation often make such disputes difficult to manage and slow to resolve, and the disputed material is typically spread across a large body of contractual and project records.
Resolving these disputes has traditionally required several separate experts. Parties often engage one person to interpret the contract and the delivery model, a planner to address delay, sequencing and the critical path, a quantity surveyor to test the figures and calculate the quantum, and a practitioner with project experience to explain causation. Each of these roles brings a distinct area of knowledge to the matter, and each is typically retained separately. Coordinating those exports can be time-consuming, particularly on large projects where the contractual, technical and financial issues overlap.
The difficulty arises when those separate reports are brought together. Because each expert applies different fees, methodologies and assumptions, the resulting reports are not built on a common foundation. Clients are then left to reconcile documents that were never prepared from the same starting point, which adds time and cost to an already complex process.
According to the firm, this fragmented approach can weaken a case. When an expert is cross-examined and cannot explain why their assumptions differ from those of the other experts, the evidence may fail to hold together, regardless of the underlying merits of the claim. The firm notes that a case may then falter not because the client is wrong, but because the evidence was never built to be consistent.
The firm states that Australian clients and litigation law firms engage them to address this issue through a single, unified Quantum Expert Report. Because the causation, delay and quantum findings are prepared together by one expert using one methodology, the assumptions behind each element are shared rather than developed independently. The findings are therefore intended to remain consistent with one another and to withstand scrutiny in an adjudication or court setting, and the firm describes the reports as court-ready and prepared to be defended in testimony.
The reports are prepared by the firm’s Principal. He’s a Chartered Engineer, Chartered Quantity Surveyor, forensic delay analyst and Registered Adjudicator. He has more than forty years of experience across civil, building, mining, and oil and gas projects, and has worked with major design firms and contractors in the country. Over the course of his career, he has acted as design engineer, project manager and claims manager on projects delivered by some of the country's larger construction firms.
Across more than four decades, Albert Merolla - Quantum Expert Witness has been involved in disputes on projects affected by delays, cost overruns and financial loss. His work focuses on identifying the cause from which a dispute arose, and the firm describes him as a forensic expert able to establish, with supporting evidence, why a dispute occurred. He provides independent expert reports, evidence and testimony in delay and quantum disputes across Australia, the Middle East and the United States.
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For more information about Build Conex, contact the company here:
Build Conex
Albert Merolla
1800 868 548
info@clb.net.au
Build Conex
Suite 140, 167 Eagle Street
Brisbane QLD 4000
Australia
