Contract Administration

Contract Administration

FIDIC 1999 VS FIDIC 1987

1 Comment

By Edward Sunna

What You Need To Know and Why?
The private sector in the UAE and more recently the public sector in Abu Dhabi, have adopted FIDIC or at least a hybrid version of FIDIC for government use. This was done in part to reduce the risk of international contracting, but more importantly, to standardise terms of engagement to reduce uncertainty caused by the application and interplay of Federal Laws and the various Laws of the Emirates, in so far as they are applicable to construction contracts.

…

FIDIC 1999 VS FIDIC 1987Read More »

Construction Law, Contract Administration

How subcontractors can get paid

One of the critical but not “headline making” aspects of the downturn in the construction industry is that many subcontractors are having difficulty getting paid on projects and meeting their own debts as they fall due.

The subcontractor is usually dependent on the contractor being paid under the main contract. One often sees a “pay when paid” clause in subcontract which essentially means that the subcontractor will not be paid by the contractor until the contractor has been paid for the subcontractor’s work by the employer. This necessarily involves even in the best case scenario a longer credit period to the contractor than the contractor in turn gives to the employer. The subcontractor generally has little input in to the certification process by the employer’s advisor prior to him or her approving an invoice in favour of the contractor. …

How subcontractors can get paidRead More »

Construction Law, Contract Administration

FIDIC’S FOUR NEW STANDARD FORMS OF CONTRACT: Risks, Force Majeure and Termination

 By Christopher R. Seppala

I propose briefly to discuss five topics in the three new Books for major works (the new Construction Contract, the Plant Contract and the EPC Contract), as follows:

 (1) Contractor’s risk and “Employer’s Risks”,

(2) Indemnities,

(3) Limitation of Liability,

(4) The New Force Majeure Clause, and

(5) Grounds and Procedure for Termination of the Contract by the Employer and the Contractor. …

FIDIC’S FOUR NEW STANDARD FORMS OF CONTRACT: Risks, Force Majeure and TerminationRead More »

Construction Law, Contract Administration

Making Demands on Advance Payment Guarantees and Performance Bonds: The Test to Secure Summary Judgment on a Claim before the English Court

by Karen Gough

We are in the midst of a world-wide recession. So, in times when contractors’ liquidity and therefore their very survival is more at risk than usual, and employers are more than usually jittery about the ability of contractors to complete works, a recent decision on a claim to enforce an advance payment guarantee and a performance bonds is of particular interest to construction law practitioners. …

Making Demands on Advance Payment Guarantees and Performance Bonds: The Test to Secure Summary Judgment on a Claim before the English CourtRead More »

Construction Law, Contract Administration

Are lawyers ready to leave their comfort zones to set the world’s infrastructure projects on the right track?

by Martin Harman

I have just returned from a family holiday in India, our first visit together although I am a frequent business traveller there. Apart from the beauty and vibrancy of the country and its people, what struck me most was that when travelling on business one is so very removed from the real life of the people of the country. I spend a large part of my time working as an international legal counsel to Indian law firms and Indian corporates who are at the forefront of the delivery of India’s infrastructure vision, a vision that requires, as just one example, the delivery of 20 kilometres of road every day over the next few years. For the business traveller, whose main transport experience is a journey from hotel to office, the scale of the infrastructure deficit begins to come into focus but as a tourist traveller, it looms extremely large. …

Are lawyers ready to leave their comfort zones to set the world’s infrastructure projects on the right track?Read More »

Contract Administration, General Management, Project Management

We do not negotiate! Or do we?

1 Comment

by Conrad Egbert
With the market having fallen 40% until now, many clients, contractors and suppliers across the region have begun to renegotiate contracts. CW talks to some of the top experts in the industry to find out what they think about the trend. Last week, CW discovered that City of Arabia – the Ilyas & Mustafa Galadari owned US $3 billion development – is currently renegotiating certain contracts. …

We do not negotiate! Or do we?Read More »

Contract Administration

Mediate, adjudicate or both?

by Larry Lin
Increasingly, when a dispute arises between two contracting parties, they are strongly encouraged to settle the dispute in question through various types of resolution methods available. Such methods are collectively called alternative dispute resolution (ADR), and include negotiation, mediation or adjudication and should be used before the dispute is escalated into arbitration or litigation. …

Mediate, adjudicate or both?Read More »

Contract Administration

Administration of project preliminaries

2 Comments

by Fattah Aderinto

Estimators and project administrators often administer preliminaries as either function of project cost, project duration or adjudication parameters. Also, most contracts in the Middle East often include an item under preambles, indicating a fixed method of administering preliminaries. These approaches do not agree with the logic of preliminaries and in the long run, are to the disadvantage of both the client and the contractor. …

Administration of project preliminariesRead More »

Construction Industry, Construction Law, Contract Administration

Consultancy agreements and allegations of illegality

by Matthias Scherer

Contractors and suppliers operating abroad often conclude contracts with agents, consultants and other intermediaries who assist them in tender processes as well as in negotiating and performing contracts. Typically, these consultancy agreements provide that disputes are to be submitted to arbitration. Most disputes concern the consultants’ entitlement to a fee. In these disputes, the principal often argues that the contract was illegal under the applicable law. This notably occurred in two cases which led to two recent decisions of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court on applications to set aside or revise arbitral awards.

In the first case, a Swiss and a Taiwanese party had entered into a consultancy agreement in respect of a contract which the Swiss party wished to obtain for managing and maintaining an electricity plant in Taiwan. On the basis of the agreement, the Taiwanese consultant later initiated arbitration under the Swiss Rules of International Arbitration to obtain payment of his fees. The arbitral tribunal found in a partial award that the consultancy agreement was valid.

…

Consultancy agreements and allegations of illegalityRead More »

Scroll to Top