What is the FIDIC 28-day time bar?

There are two clocks, and people conflate them

This is the mistake that costs the most, so it is worth separating carefully.

The first obligation: if you consider an instruction to constitute a variation, you must give notice before commencing the work. That window closes the moment the crew starts, and nothing announces it.

The second, and quite separate: any claim for additional time or money must be noticed within 28 days of becoming aware of the event giving rise to it. That is the time bar.

They are different notices, triggered by different things, on different clocks. Satisfying one does not satisfy the other.

Why "condition precedent" is the phrase that matters

A condition precedent means the notice is not an administrative courtesy — it is the thing entitlement depends on. Fail to give it in time and the right to claim is extinguished, however strong the underlying case would have been.

Tribunals apply this. It is not a technicality that a reasonable arbitrator will look past because the merits are good. The merits never get reached.

What to actually do about it

Notice early and notice often. A notice given unnecessarily costs you an email. A notice not given costs you the claim.

And keep the register, because the 28 days runs from awareness — and awareness is a question of fact that somebody will later try to pin to an earlier date than you would like. A contemporaneous record of when you knew is the answer to that argument.

Terms

• Time Bar