Unforeseeable and exceptional situations may arise that prevent DG ECHO’s Partners from fulfilling certain contractual obligations under the ECHO-funded Action. If these (or other) reasons prevent a DG ECHO Partner from performing its agreed tasks and duties, it is important to immediately inform (by email) the desk officer at DG ECHO to assess the situation and to agree upon any appropriate procedural follow-up.

For DG ECHO, Force Majeure is any situation or event that:

• prevents the ECHO Partner from fulfilling its obligations under the Agreement with ECHO;
• is unforeseeable and exceptional situation, beyond the ECHO Partner’s control,
• is not due to the error or negligence of the ECHO Partner (including its staff and others it selected to implement the Action e.g., Implementing Partners, service providers, locally engaged staff, contractors etc.), and
• is inevitable, despite the ECHO Partner exercising all due diligence.

A party prevented by force majeure from fulfilling its obligations under the Agreement cannot be considered in breach of them. The contractual impact of ‘Force majeure’ is further explained in Article 35 of the HUMA MGA.

• Situations in which the performance of an obligation has simply become more difficult for reasons outside the reasons mentioned above.
• Situations which occurred due to neglect (e.g. loss of supporting documents due to insufficient archiving practices).
• Default of service, defect in equipment or material, delays in making them available (e.g. delays in custom services, container lost in the harbour).

Cases of possible force majeure must be reported quickly (by email) to the desk officer at DG ECHO, to assess if the force majeure should be invoked, and to agree upon any appropriate procedural follow-up.

Where the DG ECHO Partner has been prevented from fulfilling important contractual obligations under the ECHO-funded, the Force Majeure Reporting Form, which covers all the information needed to examine the case, may be used for reporting. The desk officer will review the information provided and may require further information / documentation to assess the situation.

This form is not needed to support a request for full Interruption or Suspension of the Action’s activities in the field, even where that request is justified by reasons of force majeure. ECHO’s procedure for assessing requests for full Suspension or Interruption of the Action already includes a dedicated space to provide details on related operational force majeure. 

The ECHO Partner can generally assess if it faces a situation of force majeure by answering the following questions:  

1. Is the force majeure situation preventing the ECHO Partner from fulfilling its obligations under the Agreement?
2. Was it an unforeseeable, exceptional situation beyond the ECHO Partner’s  control?
3. Was it due to the error or negligence of the ECHO Partner (or on the part of other participants involved in the Action)?
4. Did it prove to be inevitable in spite of the ECHO Partner exercising all due diligence?

If the answer to questions 1, 2 and 4 is YES, and the answer to question 3 is NO, the ECHO Partner should notify DG ECHO, without delay, of the force majeure situation.

After analysing the situation, DG ECHO will guide the Partner on the appropriate follow-up.  

If DG ECHO acknowledges the existence of force majeure, the ECHO Partner will not be held liable for the identified contractual obligations that it could not fulfil because of that force majeure event. The information shared should be carefully kept in the Action file for the purposes of any possible ex post audit.

For operational situations where force majeure, or other operational obstacles, prevent the continued implementation of activities in the field, the Partner can agree with DG ECHO on a temporary interruption or reduction of the Action’s activities. Have a look at the dedicated page for more information on the procedures to follow.