CRUX Insight Eighth Annual Report

From Insight to Foresight – the Eighth Annual CRUX Insight Report – presents the latest industry-leading analysis of construction and engineering projects worldwide.

Key points:

• More than 2,200 projects, valued at US$2.43 trillion, across 114 countries
• Disputed costs averaged around a third of contract budgets
• Claimed extensions of time would add two thirds to works schedules
• New time-based analyses revealed a big shift in claim and dispute patterns
• Most causes have reduced in frequency, with regional variations
• Despite pandemic, disputed schedule and budget overruns were lower post-2020
• COVID-19 caused conflict on almost a quarter of projects
• Cashflow and payment issues ranking higher in tougher economic times

“It is very encouraging to report our evidence that many types of disputes are afflicting a smaller proportion of projects in recent years – and the impact on outcomes, especially programmes, may be easing.

We cautiously welcome this progress, but as CRUX Insight makes clear, it is not universal. Some regions, sectors, and causal factors buck this apparently positive trend, and our analysis shows how many dispute drivers are magnified on megaprojects.

This is why this report again shares our experts’ insights and advice to propel further improvements in project planning, procurement and execution.”

Renny Borhan, Partner, Chief Executive Officer

Fresh insights

Rolling research into claims and disputes across the global construction and engineering industry has produced fresh insights into their causes and consequences.

CRUX is the ongoing research programme of HKA, the global consultancy specialising in risk mitigation, dispute resolution, expert witness and litigation support services.

The CRUX analysis reveals new evidence of significant reductions in many underlying drivers of conflict on distressed projects, limiting the damage to schedules and budgets. Also for the first time, this year’s report sets out how projects’ scale affects dispute frequency and type – and investigates how claims and outcomes vary with the form of contract.

Cumulative impacts

The latest CRUX annual report, From Insight to Foresight, distils intelligence on over 2,200 projects in 114 countries from investigations by HKA consultants. Together, these projects had a combined capital expenditure (CapEx) value of $2.433 trillion. A large proportion were megaprojects, with an average project CapEx around $1.25billion.

The grand total of costs claimed stood at $95.0 billion. Sums in dispute averaged 33.4% of contract budgets. Time extensions sought by contractors amounted to 65.8% of planned schedules.

These cumulative averages were a couple of points lower than last year, reflecting the addition of more than 200 projects up to mid-July 2025.

A 2020 watershed

Further analysis of the full dataset revealed more significant progress over time, based on a comparison of these multi-year projects by their scheduled end dates.

The most common underlying causes of claims and disputes have generally seen a decline in their impact, especially in the last five years. Projects due to complete in 2020 or later saw some factors fall by a third or more:

• Design: In the pre-2020 period, each of the design ‘triple whammy’ causes of late, incomplete or inaccurate information had impacted more than a fifth (20-23%) of projects. In the later period, lateness and incompleteness dropped down the ranking of causes as only incorrect design (still a top-three cause) affected more than 15% of projects.
• Change in scope: Still the most common cause of conflict, scope change affected just over 28% of projects (down from over 36%).
• Other factors: The proportions of projects disrupted by failures in contract management and administration, or by poor management of subcontractors almost halved (to less than 9%).

Exceptions to the trend

Two factors defied the generally positive global trend:

• COVID-19: The pandemic’s impact peaked as claims and disputes came to fruition. Around a quarter (24%) of projects due to complete after January 2020 were affected. COVID-19 was the second-ranked factor (after scope change). Almost a third (nearly 32%) of megaprojects were affected.
• Cashflow and payments: Historically more prevalent in some regions, these disputes continue to afflict one in seven projects globally (over 14%). As other causes declined, this source of contention ranked fourth post-2020. Moreover, further analysis of the most recent data suggests this problem may be growing amid tougher global economic conditions – especially on megaprojects (over 25%).

Savings in time and money

The downward trend in claims and disputes was reflected in the impact on programmes and, to a lesser degree, budgets.

Claims for extensions of time were shorter by more than 20 percentage points, as the global average fell to less than half (49%) of planned schedules. Claimed costs also fell by around three points (to less than 28% of budgets) for affected contracts, with wider regional variations.

Some caution is required in interpreting the results given the smaller number and ongoing nature of these later projects. While the time savings suggest a valuable gain in delivery performance, they may also reflect a greater willingness to agree extensions (if not additional costs) since 2020, despite or because of the pandemic.

Regional variations

There were also some important differences between world regions.

• Africa: Restrictions on site access, payment issues, and various contract-centric claims have risen, but there were sharp drops in disputes over late approvals and total sums claimed.
• Americas: Deficient workmanship, formerly the second most common cause, fell (from 22% to 14%), but the region’s historically low claimed costs increased.
• Asia: Along with disruption due to COVID-19,late approvals surged to affect more than 26% of projects, and clashes over contract interpretation also rose.
• Europe: Limited progress on design accuracy and workmanship (still affecting 30% and 25% of projects, respectively) and claimed costs increased.
• Middle East: Despite having the most pandemic-related disputes, and persistently high conflict over payments, there were big reductions in schedule overruns and disputed costs.
• Oceania: COVID-19 had the lowest impact, but the proportion of projects affected by disagreements over access and contract interpretation increased.

About CRUX

CRUX is HKA’s integrated research programme.

This draws on incomparable intelligence from investigations by experts providing claims consulting and dispute resolution services on major capital projects around the world.

CRUX Insight is our annual publication analysing the root causes of claims and disputes. We are committed to sharing lessons with clients and more widely so our industry can effectively manage risks on complex projects.

Keep up to date on CRUX Insights on our LinkedIn page.