Roles: Project Manager, Supervisor and the Parties

This chapter sets out the four roles that administer an NEC4 contract – the Client, the Contractor, the Project Manager and the Supervisor. Each is examined in turn. The Project Manager carries the central role in commercial administration. The Supervisor carries the narrower quality function under clauses 41 to 44, culminating in the Defects Certificate. The Contractor carries the clause 20.1 obligation to Provide the Works. And the Client retains a set of strategic decisions reserved to it alone. The clause 14.2 delegation mechanism is treated separately, including the three requirements of a valid delegation notice and the recurring drafting failures that invalidate it. Clauses 10.1 and 10.2 frame conduct, with 10.1 binding every procedural deadline and 10.2 imposing the mutual trust and good faith overlay shaped by Van Oord v Dragados and Costain v Tarmac. The chapter closes by examining the role of governance failures that leave a clean evidentiary trail in any subsequent dispute.