DeHeng Lanzhou Successfully Represented a Client in an Arbitration Case Involving a Delay Dispute in an Indonesian Power Plant Project

2025-02-14

Around the 2025 Spring Festival, DeHeng Lanzhou achieved a significant victory in a construction contract dispute case related to an Indonesian power plant project. The arbitral award issued by the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (Shanghai Sub-Commission) supported DeHeng’s claims, resulting in a satisfactory outcome for the client. This was a typical example of using the “Retrospective Longest Path” analysis method from the Society of Construction Law (SCL) in the UK to handle delay disputes in overseas engineering projects. 

The case arose from a power plant project in Indonesia that our client and the general contractor jointly undertook. The project experienced a severe delay, exceeding the scheduled duration by over two years. After paying the project owner a delay penalty of USD 10.2 million, the general contractor filed a maximum delay claim against our client. After receiving the mandate from the client, DeHeng lawyers organized a comprehensive and professional response. After four years of arbitration proceedings, the arbitral tribunal ultimately supported most of DeHeng’s defenses and claims, ruling that our client was only responsible for a delay of 89 days and fully supported the client’s claims for the remaining construction payments. 

The DeHeng team was led by Yang Xiangyun, head of DeHeng’s Lanzhou Office, with the full participation of lawyers Ma Hui, Chen Shaokai, and Wang Jiangyu, who are in charge of the Foreign-related Legal Service Center. The successful defense outcome was also indispensable from the comprehensive support and cooperation of the client’s leadership and project team.