This article considers how UAE contractors in Iraqi construction arbitrations should reconcile head office cost records with site-level evidence of delay. A contractor may book project costs centrally in Dubai while the events behind its delay claim are recorded on an Iraqi site. Accounting records show that costs were incurred, but not that a compensable event caused them.
The Civil Code No. 40 of 1951 governs substantive questions of construction obligations, breach, causation and compensation. The Evidence Law No. 107 of 1979 and the Civil Procedure Law No. 83 of 1969 apply in Iraqi proceedings, and Iraq’s accession to the New York Convention by Law No. 14 of 2021 governs enforcement of foreign awards. For public contracts signed from February 2026, the Public Contracts Implementation Instructions No. 1 of 2025 limit the use of arbitration, so the forum must be checked contract by contract.
The contractual basis of the claim
The contractor should identify the event giving rise to relief and the contract’s notice and substantiation requirements. Delay to completion, additional work and disruption may carry different entitlements, and an extension of time does not automatically bring a right to every cost incurred during the extended period.
A review of Iraqi construction contracts should address risk allocation and applicable mandatory rules. The claim should explain whether the employer caused the event, assumed the risk or became liable on another basis. Reliance on a standard form label is not enough where project amendments changed the obligations.
Site evidence and causation
Programmes, progress reports, instructions and correspondence should show what happened and how it affected the works. A delayed activity may not delay completion if it had float or was off the critical path, and the delay methodology should suit the records available.
Concurrent events require careful treatment. Employer instructions, contractor performance and supply problems may overlap, and attributing the whole period to one event without considering the others undermines credibility. Expert analysis helps, but assumptions and source records should remain visible so the tribunal can test the link between event and loss.
Head office allocations and project expenditure
Cost records should separate actual project expenditure from allocated group charges and estimated losses. A ledger entry may need invoices, payroll records or evidence of services. An internal charge does not show that the cost was caused by the event relied on.
Allocation methods should be explained and duplication avoided across head office overheads, site prolongation and subcontractor claims. Formulae for head office overhead should be justified under the contract, applicable law and the evidence, not presented as automatic entitlements. Iraqi courts and tribunals applying Iraqi law focus on actual, proven loss, and Civil Code limits on compensation and judicial review of agreed damages should be considered. Currency conversions and credits should be applied consistently.
Presenting a coherent evidential record
Each major cost category should be traceable to the relevant period, activity and supporting document. Translations into Arabic or English should preserve dates, technical qualifications and the identity of those issuing instructions. Reconstructed records should be identified as such, with their basis explained.
For construction arbitration involving Iraq, evidence should follow the tribunal’s procedural directions and keep witness recollection separate from contemporaneous documents. Experts should receive consistent information, including records that may qualify the claim. Head office witnesses should speak to records within their own knowledge, and site staff to events they observed.
Enforcement considerations
An award is only valuable if it can be enforced. Where the respondent is an Iraqi public entity or has assets mainly in Iraq, the contractor should consider early how enforcement will proceed before Iraqi courts, including translation and authentication of the award and the grounds on which enforcement may be resisted. Evidence prepared with enforcement in mind reduces the risk of challenge at that stage.
Contemporaneous notices and records
Many delay claims fail not because the employer caused no delay, but because the contractor did not give notices or keep records required by the contract. Iraqi construction contracts commonly require written notice of claims within specified periods, and tribunals applying Iraqi law may give real weight to those requirements. Contractors should ensure that site teams understand notice obligations and that notices are sent to the correct recipient in the required form.
Site diaries, labour and equipment records, photographs and minutes of meetings should be kept consistently throughout the project, not assembled when a dispute arises. Head office should have access to these records, so that cost allocation can be linked to site events in real time. A claim prepared from contemporaneous records is far more persuasive than one built on later reconstruction and witness recollection alone.
Conclusion & how Etihad Law Firm can help
Delay and cost evidence should tell one supported story of entitlement, causation and recoverable loss, consistent between site and head office.
As Iraq construction arbitration lawyers for UAE-based companies, Etihad Law Firm prepares and defends construction claims, coordinates site, financial and expert evidence, represents contractors before arbitral tribunals and Iraqi courts, and advises on enforcement, so that the amount claimed follows from the events and obligations relied on.