Claims assessed, validated and resolved — without taking sides.
HCA assesses, validates and substantiates claims and disputes across all industries, then brings every concerned party to the same table through a dedicated Resolution Committee. Thirty-nine years of live project experience, applied independently.
Initial consultation 30 minutes, complimentary · Confidential from first contact · Arabic & English
Why the practice exists.
Our mission is to deliver independent and professional claims consulting services by assessing, validating, and substantiating claims and disputes across all industries, and facilitating their resolution through a dedicated Resolution Committee representing all concerned stakeholders, ensuring equitable, efficient, and sustainable outcomes.
Four disciplines, one claim lifecycle.
A claim can be built, challenged, tested or settled. HCA is engaged at whichever of those points you are standing — and never on both sides of the same matter.
Claim formulation
- Identification of contractual entitlement
- Preparation and development of claims
- Cause-and-effect analysis
- Delay, disruption and prolongation claim preparation
- Cost and damages quantification
- Supporting documentation and claim submission
Claim evaluation
- Technical and contractual review of claims
- Assessment of merit, entitlement and quantum
- Risk and exposure analysis
- Independent expert opinion
- Evaluation of contractor, subcontractor, employer and consultant claims
Claim validation
- Verification of facts, records and supporting evidence
- Contract compliance assessment
- Validation of delay analyses and cost calculations
- Auditing of claim substantiation
- Identification of strengths, weaknesses and potential defences
Dispute resolution support
- Resolution Committee facilitation
- Negotiation and settlement support
- Mediation and adjudication assistance
- Arbitration and litigation support
- Expert reports and witness services
Analysis that stands up to scrutiny.
Method is selected to suit the contemporaneous records and the requirements of the contract, not to suit a preferred answer. Work is prepared in a form that survives cross-examination and satisfies a tribunal, a dispute board or an opposing expert.
Delay & disruption
- Forensic delay analysis — time impact analysis, as-planned versus as-built, impacted as-planned, collapsed as-built, and time slice or windows analysis
- Critical path and float ownership, concurrency and pacing delay
- Disruption — measured mile and baseline productivity comparison; loss of productivity
- Acceleration, including constructive acceleration and mitigation costs
- Programme forensics — baseline validation, progress records, as-built reconstruction
Quantum & damages
- Prolongation costs — time-related preliminaries, site and staff establishment
- Head office overhead and profit — Hudson, Emden and Eichleay formulae where appropriate
- Variations and change orders, rates and prices, and valuation on a quantum meruit basis
- Liquidated and delay damages, defects and rectification costs
- Finance charges, interest and currency; treatment of global and total cost claims
Frameworks & forums
- SCL Delay and Disruption Protocol (2nd edition) and AACE International RP 29R-03
- FIDIC Red, Yellow and Silver Books, 1999 and 2017 editions — notices, time bars and conditions precedent
- NEC3 and NEC4 compensation events and early warning; JCT relevant events and loss and expense
- Dispute boards — DAB and DAAB under FIDIC; adjudication under the UK Construction Act
- Arbitration — DIAC, ADCCAC, SCCA, LCIA and ICC rules; expert reports and expert determination
Everyone reads the same set of facts.
Most disputes harden because each party is working from its own version of the record. The Resolution Committee removes that: one independently validated set of facts, causation and quantum, put in front of every concerned stakeholder at once, chaired impartially.
Convene. All concerned stakeholders are brought into a single structured forum under agreed terms of reference.
Establish. Facts, contemporaneous records, delay analysis and quantum are independently verified before positions are argued.
Resolve. Settlement is negotiated on substantiated entitlement — equitable, efficient, and durable enough to hold.
chair
Judgement built on live programmes, not case files.
A sample of the projects behind the numbers — delivered in senior contracts, commercial and claims roles.
Shah Gas Development
Sour gas programme. Managed tendering and award of the EPC contract for the sulphur station and pipelines, coordinating eight contractors and a rail terminal handling 22,000 tonnes of granulated sulphur per day.
Raw gas & oil development
EPC programme. Led a contracts and procurement team of nine, delivering 20+ award recommendations on schedule and reducing contractual risk exposure by an estimated $30mn.
Upper Zakum EPC 2
Offshore expansion raising production from 750,000 to 1 million barrels per day. Oversaw supply chain for 189 modules across 13 fabrication yards worldwide and executed a $500mn contract amendment.
NEOM Spine Railway
High-speed and freight railway. Custodian of all RFP engineering documents, with commercial oversight of the contractor portfolio and resolution of an estimated $85mn in legacy claims.
Independence, earned the hard way.
Mohamed Hafez has spent 39 years on major projects across the Gulf, the wider Middle East and the UK, for organisations including ADNOC, ZADCO, Bechtel, KBR, Wood, Fluor, AECOM, Parsons and Hill International — in oil and gas, heavy civil, rail and construction.
That experience runs the full length of a contract: procurement and negotiation, administration under pressure on site, claims when things go wrong, and settlement when they have to be put right. Having sat on the employer's side, the contractor's side and the consultant's side, he knows how each one builds its case — and where each one's case tends to break.
HCA applies that judgement independently. Claims are assessed on entitlement, causation and evidence, and the answer is the answer whoever is paying for it. Clients receive senior attention directly, with no junior handoffs, in Arabic and English, remotely or on site.
Common questions.
What does an independent claims consultant do?
Which delay analysis methodologies do you use?
Which industries do you work in?
What is the Resolution Committee?
Which regions and contract forms do you cover?
How do engagements start, and how are they priced?
Is the first conversation confidential?
Request a consultation.
Initial consultations run to thirty minutes, are complimentary, and are confidential whether or not the engagement proceeds. Enquiries are answered personally, usually within one working day.