NEC4 contracts are built around a simple idea: an early warning notice costs nothing and can change an outcome; a formal compensation event claim raised months later rarely does.
The early warning mechanism exists so problems get raised — and often resolved — while they're still cheap and simple. Once a genuine dispute crystallises into a formal claim, the numbers involved are usually bigger and the positions more fixed.
The firms that use NEC4 well aren't the ones with the best claims teams. They're the ones who never needed one in the first place.
