Interference: dispute associated with determination of own employment by contractor in construction

Abstract

Delays and disruption are common interferences in construction projects. Majority of the employers find it difficult not to interfere the work schedule of contractor on site. The interference of employers constituted to the increase of the intensity on the relationship between the employers and contractors, which result to the existence of disputes. To overcome these losses, contractors may apply for determination of own employment and request for interference claims from employers through PAM 2006, Clause 26.1or CIDB 2000, Clause 45.1(a)(ii). Contractors can also claim damages through law of tort, tortious interference, especially for parties that use PWD 203A as their project’s contract. There is no clause on determination of own employment by the contractor under PWD 203A. As a result, contractors may encounter some difficulties on interference claim within the legal process. In most cases, the documentation of evidences available to the contractor is not sufficient enough to support the claims because the subjects of interference claims are very subjective. Therefore, two objectives were proposed for this research, which are to identify whether interference by employers can lead to determination of own employment by contractors and also to identify the circumstances which allow contractor for interference claims. In order to achieve the two objectives, there are a total of eleven law cases abstracted from Lexis Nexis. For the first objective, two number of cases reflected that the contractor had the right to determinate own employment with interference by employer with condition that the contractor is able to provide the above standard evidences on the interference by employer which had constituted in the losses of the contractor. For the second objectives, it was found that there are three out of nine cases that proved contractor is liable for interference claim against employer with condition of there are interference by employer, employer had knowledge of the existence of contract, employer had the intention to interfere with the contract and the last is the contractor had suffered loss.