International Construction Law Review
CONTRACTORS’ LIABILITY UNDER THE CIVIL CODES OF ALGERIA, EGYPT, QATAR, AND THE UAE
SAID M HANAFI, LL M*
PhD Candidate at Queen Mary, University of London
The question of contractors’ liability is of special importance to any risk assessment exercise undertaken by contractors prior to their involvement in a particular project. This is particularly the case where contractors carry out their activities in non-familiar jurisdictions.
Normally, a contractor would seek to define the limits of his liability with respect to the warranties he is giving for the design or the quality of the works, the actions of third parties and generally to define his overall liability for the works under the contract. One would expect a well-drafted contract to address these issues within the ambits of the risk allocation philosophy adopted in the contract. Nevertheless, there are specific provisions in the applicable law of the contract that may have specific relevance to these contractual provisions and which, therefore, require special attention by practitioners. This article attempts to address some of these issues within the context of some selected Arab jurisdictions.
I. SCOPE
The geographical coverage of this Article, i.e., Egypt, Qatar, Algeria, and the UAE, does not reflect any specific practical or academic criteria. It is not, for instance, limited to a description of a specific region within the Arab world nor does it compare different legal systems within the Arab world. However, it is an attempt to shed light on the legal systems of countries that are currently under the spotlight by major foreign contractors due to their economic conditions.
Further, it is a common feature of all jurisdictions surveyed in this article that they inherited, as other civil laws, from French law the distinctions between two types of contracts for works: (1) private works contracts that involve private parties or the state as a non-sovereign power; (2) public works contracts that involve the state as a sovereign power. Each set of contracts is subject to a different set of rules.1
Whilst one must recognise that governments in this part of the world are major clients for construction projects, this article will only deal with the first set of rules, namely, those
* E-mail: s.m.hanafi@qmnl.ac.uk
1 Hani Sari-Eldin, “Operation of FIDIC Civil Engineering Conditions in Egypt and other Arab Middle Eastern Countries” (1994) 4 The International Lawyer
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Contractors’ Liability under some Arab Civil Codes
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