FIDIC 2017: A Practical Legal Guide

FIDIC 2017 A Practical Legal Guide, by leading FIDIC law firm Corbett & Co, is a comprehensive and analytic guide to the new FIDIC suite of contracts.  The book examines clause by clause the FIDIC forms with a focus of the FIDIC Yellow Book and comparison sections to the Red and Silver books.  There is over 8 pages of cases cited from around the world, many focussing on FIDIC related disputes.

The book offers engineers, contractors, adjudicators, arbitrators, construction professionals as well as solicitors and barristers a detailed and authoritative commentary on all issues relating to the new FIDIC suite of contracts.   There are 100 pages of draft Notices setting out short precedents for every Notice referred to in the Yellow Book.  Unlike any other book on the subject, FIDIC 2017 A Practical Legal Guide provides both academic and practical assistance to those using the FIDIC forms of contract.

Key Features

•  Reasonable profit has been defined as 5%, avoiding a lot of argument.
•  The Engineer is to be neutral and free from Employer interference when making determinations.
•  The purposes no longer have to be defined to make the fit-for-purpose provision work.
• Ambiguities in the termination clauses have been resolved: it is now clear that two notices are required and that the defaulting party can avoid termination by making good the default within the notice period.
• Non-compliance with a DAAB decision is a ground for suspension and termination.
• More time-bar clauses, effectively ensuring that any disagreement has to be referred to the DAAB within months.
• Some failures to comply with time-bar clauses can be waived by the Engineer, others cannot.
• Acceleration can be instructed in lieu of EOT.
• Gross negligence has been added to fraud, deliberate default and reckless misconduct as a ground for vitiating the limitation of liability clause.
• Concurrency is addressed, but only in order to prompt users to put something in the Particular Conditions.