Making a Crucial Difference

Jad Chouman and Haroon Niazi both share the title ‘Partner and Head of Middle East, HKA’. How does this twinned approach to leadership actually work? How do they see the future of Dispute Resolution here in the region - and more particularly, what will be HKA’s unique contribution?

gathering more data. That data can then be fed into the dispute resolution strategy.

“However - and this is important - I don’t think this new tech will affect the individual impact and the decision making of the expert, who can understand the unique context and the very specific situation that needs to be addressed.”

“I agree”, comments Haroon. “We need to remember that as construction technology is evolving, the complexity is growing too, and this potentially increases the propensity for dispute. But this complexity means in turn that situations are more and more specific, with very unique traits, and I think we’re still quite some time away from bots being able to address these highly specific contexts and situations. However, notwithstanding, I do think there is potential in the market for disruptors.” irstly, since there are two of you leading the way, are two heads better than one?

“Personally”, says Jad Chouman, “I don’t necessarily think that in all cases, two leaders are always better than one. It’s really all about the personalities - when you have two individuals sharing the role, it should be based on trust and mutual understanding, with the view that you each bring something to complement the other. For example, a company shouldn’t give the two leaders different verticals and responsibilities - that really is a recipe for competition and disagreements. You need to be aligned, brainstorming on the same issues and strategies, putting heads together to find the best solutions.”

Haroon adds that: “In my view, the potential advantages outweigh the potential disadvantages. When you work together as a team, you get to consider different views and see things through a very different lens. Again, it comes down to the individuals involved. It’s all about getting the right people with the right experience and having them really understand one another. For us, we’re always able to leverage each other’s experience in different ways, strengths as well as weaknesses.

We’re seeing several new trends impacting the industry right now. One of them Is the growing sophistication of AI-led technology. So, is the use of intelligent ‘bots’ changing the dispute resolution process, automating it, and making it less personal?

“AI technology is impacting this industry, but largely in the way that data is gathered, and records are kept and analysed. This new level and richness of data will help people carry out their investigations better and help them reach the most professional conclusions in an efficient way. For example, one of the areas where we are seeing the impact of tech is the use of drones on construction sites as a way of

Currently, do you see any particular factors set to be important in 2023, that previously didn’t feature so strongly?

“I think it’s well worth asking the question”, says Haroon, “whether we’re getting to a point in this region where the construction sector is about to overheat?

I’m thinking particularly about the massive strain on the supply chain, and we’re seeing the giga projects in Saudi Arabia starting to exert unprecedented demands.” Jad adds that: “We also must remember that the industry was moving much slower only a year or so ago; it’s now come up to speed dramatically. Is everyone ready for this new dynamic? Are the factors in place to service this level of appetite? We shall see.”

Jad and Haroon, according to the CRUX Insight Report, last year, projects in the Middle East were prone to the worst delays - 81.3% of schedule duration. Will this figure improve or worsen in 2023?

Jad believes it will stay the same.

“Developers are awarding more complex projects that have more stakeholders and hence, more potential for delays. I don’t see any factors that lead me to believe that things will improve suddenly; if anything, the reverse is the case.”

Haroon: “The fact that we see very limited changes in behaviour on the part of any of the stakeholders involved suggests to me we aren’t going to see any changes. We might wish to see some sort of panacea, but there are no signs of it yet. So no, we won’t have a sea-change when it comes to the CRUX Insight Report’s comments on last year. In fact, we are witnessing a number of the overriding causes of disputes and delays that we identified in CRUX already prevailing in some of the Saudi Arabia giga projects.”

In terms of your own organisation, what are the main evolutionary aspects you have lined up for HKA in the next 12 months?

“We will continue”, believes Haroon, “to lead with our dispute resolution business, and we are also developing more and more specialisms - Intellectual Property (IP), Environmental, and Aviation, a practice that we have just launched. We can use these different lenses to really understand each vertical with the benefits of dedicated expertise and teams - and feedback tells us that this is what the market wants, subject matter experts.”

“A factor there”, adds Jad, “is that I feel we’re moving towards a more optimum model, with balance between our specialisms and our lead offer. I wouldn’t want us to become a company that appears to do everything, and then gets a rather blurred identity. Quite the opposite: if we strike the right balance, we can really help broad sections of the market in the right ways.”

“We have also recently reorganised our operating structure and created the new Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. This will allow us to better leverage our experts and experience across different geographies.”

Speaking of the way things are moving, do you see the CRUX Insight Report as inspiring market change? Have individual companies

‘lifted their game’ because of its conclusions at any time?

Jad: “CRUX has gained a lot of traction in the region as it gives a series of insights into very specific areas of the causes of disputes. So, it provides companies with greater awareness of the political, economic and legal factors that might not otherwise have been on their radar. Also, keep in mind that once you know the risks and the challenges, you can try to mitigate them in the first place. That really is the core CRUX mission, after all.”

“I like to think”, says Haroon, “that CRUX gives the ability for a more proactive decision making around risk. Those companies that are truly forward-thinking are cognisant of the data that CRUX presents and want to use it to reevaluate project delivery strategy. For example, one of the biggest companies in the world, Shell, is partnering with HKA using the CRUX framework to maximise insights from their own project data. CRUX enforces the ability to make data-driven decisions and therefore really create opportunities for companies to lift their game.”

Since you are both dispute resolution champions, what do you believe is the one key action that companies could take in order to avoid the most common styles of dispute happening in the first place?

Haroon: “Risk process and risk analysis. This applies right across the board: in terms of how the project is procured, how it’s brought to market, the contract, the delivery, and so on. Companies can benefit from using risk specialists to appreciate and understand what are the most likely causes of disputes and the hotspots where they can potentially occur. Remember: planning is cheap, but fixing the problems is expensive!”

“Looking deeply into the contract”, says Jad, “and understanding where the risks lie within it. We see so many contractors excited about winning a project, but completely failing to assess and deal with risks in many of the critical aspects the contract contains. It pays to take a step back and assess the challenges and how such challenges can be mitigated.”

The region is tending to see a trend towards more complex, multistakeholder projects (the Saudi ‘giga-projects’ are a good example). To what extent are these complexities a potential breeding ground for more heated and contentious disputes?

“They are to a very large extent”, explains Jad. “As mentioned earlier, the more complex the project, the more the chances for dispute, and these giga-projects certainly bring the highest levels of complexities - perhaps the most extreme the industry has ever seen. You also must remember that many of the giga-projects are being fast-tracked, with stakeholders under real, intense pressure. It’s critical with projects of this kind that when they’re fast-tracked and pushed like this, there needs to be processes and procedures to ensure that well-informed decisions are taken. Otherwise, things can start to go wrong very quickly.”

Haroon adds that: “The more complex the projects are, the more the stakeholders need to assess the risks on an ongoing basis and to have the right mechanisms in place that can help mitigate those risks.

“There’s another factor, too. We see these giga-projects calling for multi-skilled teams that need to be brought together very quickly. Often, the teams will be from different backgrounds which undoubtedly will have an impact on the project culture. This puts a real onus on effective communication as well as the importance of effective processes and procedures.”

What further actions are HKA planning to take in order to make the industry a more co-operative, prosperous place for all parties?

Haroon: “We touched before on our advisory services across particular verticals and sectors, and it’s really our ability to apply tailored solutions to suit specific situations Expect to see us complement pure dispute resolution with an approach that increasingly encourages businesses to take a proactive stance in mitigating risk - reducing the likelihood of severe and complicated outcomes. That’s how we can really make a crucial difference in 2023.”