The FIDIC Red Book Contract: An International Clause-by-Clause Commentary

The FIDIC Red Book Contract: An International Clause-by-Clause Commentary, authored by the pre-eminent legal expert on FIDIC (International Federation of Consulting Engineers) contracts and Legal Advisor to the FIDIC Contracts Committee, is an essential resource for all parties called on to work with a FIDIC contract. Conditions of Contract for Construction – popularly known as the Red Book – published by FIDIC is the most commonly used standard form of international construction contract. This unique book furnishes an in-depth commentary on the 2017 FIDIC Red Book. The commentary, for every one of the Red Book’s 168 Sub-Clauses:

• discusses all changes from the 1999 edition
• analyses the meaning and significance of the Sub-Clause and lists related Sub-Clauses
• describes related international arbitration awards, national court decisions and legal principles, and
• often proposes modifications to improve the Sub-Clause

What’s in this book:

With guidance in drafting, negotiating, performing, interpreting, or administering a FIDIC contract, the book’s user-friendly structure includes the following issues and topics:

• introduction to FIDIC and its contracts and publications of FIDIC and others relevant to the Red Book critical examination of each Sub-Clause and advice for amending the same to better adapt it to the interests of each party (the Employer or the Contractor)
• special attention to the Contractor’s and the Employer’s claims and claims procedure and to how to assert claims effectively, as well as to time bars and other pitfalls and how to overcome them
• detailed examination of Sub-Clauses relating to the referral of issues or disputes to the Dispute Avoidance/Adjudication Board and, if necessary, to international arbitration, and optimal strategies for doing so
• discussion of the changes required to the 2017 Red Book by The World Bank’s Conditions of Particular Application (‘COPA’)
• frequent reference to ICC awards, court decisions, the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts and, where relevant, trade usages
• comprehensive discussion of practical issues that arise under common law, civil law and international legal principles, especially when a contract is with a state or public body
• comparison of common law and civil law methods of contract interpretation and a suggested practical approach to interpretation given a FIDIC contract’s international arbitration clause, and
• consideration of how to overcome problems that can arise when a contract is governed by the law of a less-developed country

How this will help you:

Undeniably the most extensive commentary ever published on the FIDIC Red Book, this work enables drafters of FIDIC contracts to amend and adapt the Red Book’s provisions in an informed way to a particular project. Dispute adjudicators, arbitrators, and judges will welcome the book’s authoritative guidance on interpreting the provisions of a FIDIC contract, and engineers and other construction professionals involved in contract administration will appreciate the book’s many hands-on features.