International Construction Law Review
THE ORIGINS AND PURPOSES OF THE FAC-1 FRAMEWORK ALLIANCE CONTRACT
Professor David Mosey, PhD
Director, Centre of Construction Law and Dispute Resolution, King’s College London (david.mosey@kcl.ac.uk)
Keywords: The planning role of construction and engineering contracts – Preconstruction contracts as neo-classical or relational or “enterprise” contracts – The impact of framework alliance contracts – framework alliance case studies – The FAC-1 framework alliance contract – Supply chain collaboration – FAC-1 in use- the impact of BIM.
INTRODUCTION
Construction and engineering contracts are made between parties with differing commercial interests and are based on the need to protect and reconcile those interests, but they can fulfil a number of different functions in order to meet that need. R J Smith identifies three roles for construction contracts:
- • to set out rights, responsibilities and procedures;
- • to identify, assign and transfer risk; and
- • to act as a “planning tool” so that there are “fewer surprises and dilemmas during construction”.1
This paper will question why most construction contracts govern only the construction phase of a single project, which leaves it too late for the contract to fulfil its role as a “planning tool”. I will explore the preconstruction phase planning role of construction contracts and their ability to help reduce surprises and dilemmas by integrating the work of connected parties, by supporting joint risk management and by providing for joint activities designed to improve value.
By the time the project starts on site the die is already cast for many of the typical causes of disputes such as poor tender documents, incomplete
1 Smith, R J (1995) “Risk identification and allocation: saving money by improving contracts and contracting practice” [1995] ICLR 12(1), 40–71, 41 and 42.
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