A contractor stop order on a Danish construction site

• A contractor stop order is an authority decision with a defined scope.
• The process follows serious, repeated safety problems and intensified supervision.
• Affected subcontractors need clear instructions about stopping and follow-up.
• Corrected conditions do not, by themselves, authorise the team to restart.

The contractor with the relevant agreement with the client is central to the contractor stop order. Covered subcontractors are also affected. The client and its advisers need an accurate account of the order’s scope so they can coordinate activities and obtain appropriate advice on programme and contractual issues.

Do not assume a contractor stop order always covers every contractor on a site. The contract structure matters. A project with separate trade contracts can differ from one organised under a single main agreement. Use the wording of the authority’s notice to identify affected parties instead of circulating an informal summary that broadens or narrows the decision.

Start by reading the contractor stop order with the people responsible for the site and authority correspondence. List the work that must stop, the underlying orders and the information needed for follow-up. Where the wording is unclear, obtain clarification through the appropriate authority contact and competent adviser.

A contractor stop order needs an organised response. Save the notice and its attachments in an accessible location. Keep one controlled list of actions rather than separate lists in several inboxes. Record who owns each correction and how the site team will confirm that the relevant condition has been addressed.

Tell affected subcontractors what the contractor stop order means for their work. Name a contact person, identify the areas or activities involved and explain how updates will be communicated. Avoid messages such as “everything is fine now” while authority follow-up is still outstanding.

Ask each supervisor to confirm that the instruction reached their team. Keep the communication proportionate and factual. A contractor stop order can involve several employers with different working languages, shifts and arrival times. A dated briefing and a clear escalation route make it easier to prevent someone starting an affected task on an old instruction.

Separate immediate corrections from the arrangements needed to prevent recurrence. For a contractor stop order, a useful action record identifies the condition, the responsible person, the action taken and the evidence or check used to close it. Describe what changed instead of relying on a tick beside the word “completed”.

Photographs can support the record, but use them with context. State where the image was taken, when it was captured and what it demonstrates. If an instruction or access arrangement changed, retain the revised version. Evidence for a contractor stop order should help the reader understand the correction, rather than simply show that someone uploaded files.

Arbejdstilsynet must check that the stop order has been complied with before work resumes. The contractor cannot substitute an internal approval or a client’s wish to recover the programme for this authority step. Keep the contractor stop order open in the site’s action system until the required process has been completed.

When preparing the response, connect the information to the outstanding orders and the prevention arrangements agreed with subcontractors. Record the authority’s follow-up and the resulting instruction to the team. After a contractor stop order, the restart message should clearly identify which work may resume and any conditions that remain relevant.

A contractor stop order can disrupt sequencing, access and planned deliveries. Record actual events and dates while they are fresh. Identify affected activities, resource changes and notices issued. Keep this factual programme record separate from conclusions about entitlement to additional time, payment or allocation of responsibility.

AB18 or ABT18 questions depend on the contract and circumstances. A contractor stop order does not automatically establish who pays for every consequence. Ask the project’s legal or contractual adviser to assess notices, causation and the agreed terms. Avoid putting a universal compensation promise into a public guide or a site email.

Keep the contractor stop order, underlying notices, action list, subcontractor communications and follow-up evidence together. Retain the issued versions of instructions and the correspondence used for the restart process. This is a practical file structure, not an exhaustive legal list of every document a particular case might require.

Use a short index so a replacement supervisor can find the important records. An index might distinguish the authority documents, corrective actions and ongoing prevention arrangements. Check access before sending a link. A contractor stop order is difficult to manage if the person answering a question cannot open the records supporting the answer.

The entrepreneur-stop rules apply from 1 January 2026. Source information for this guide was checked on 9 October 2026. The authority’s current guidance and the individual notice govern the process; do not rely on an earlier project’s contractor stop order as a template for every new case.

After work resumes, review which coordination arrangements failed and what the team will use instead. Connect agreed measures to ordinary briefings and inspections. A contractor stop order should lead to usable prevention arrangements, with owners and follow-up, rather than a large file that nobody revisits once the immediate interruption has ended.