Edited by Dr Donald Charrett. Published by Informa Law from Routledge, November 2022 (though year of copyright 2023). Pages: 692. ISBN 978-10-320-62235. Price: Hardback £150. ebook: £105.

It might well be asked whether a review of a book entitled FIDIC Contracts in Europe: A Practical Guide to Application is really necessary, given that such a publication is almost guaranteed success among FIDIC practitioners looking for guidance as to how the FIDIC contract forms “fit in” with law and practice in various European countries. This has been a matter of particular interest ever since the use of FIDIC contract forms became a regular practice a couple of decades ago in Civil Law jurisdictions, which make up the great majority of European countries, given that the more recent editions of the FIDIC forms retained many features reflecting their Common Law origin, as encapsulated in the first edition of the Red Book published in 1957.

Unlike the World Bank, which published a Civil Law-based contract form for Civil Works about 15 years ago intended specifically for use in Civil Law jurisdictions, FIDIC has always resisted calls for a Civil Law-based contract form, or for a set of alternative provisions to be incorporated or adapted to address mandatory features of many Civil Law construction contract obligations, such as decennial liability provisions. Therefore, the analyses contained in this new publication, which covers 16 mostly Civil Law jurisdictions,1 will certainly provide very helpful guidance to practitioners, even if they can only serve as a “first stop” before consulting a lawyer in the jurisdiction in question.

The publication is the brainchild of Dr Donald Charrett, a well-known Australian barrister, arbitrator, mediator, expert, dispute board member, and prolific writer. After a first book published in 2020 with contributions from practitioners across various jurisdictions on the same topic, he is now apparently intent on offering publications that have a regional focus, having published FIDIC Contracts in Asia Pacific in 2021 (a review of which, written by Sofiane Hebib is available in this ICLR at page 71).

Dr Charrett has assembled an impressive group of construction specialists to produce the 16 chapters relating to various European jurisdictions, and the quality of their contributions is uniformly high. Helpfully, the authors have been required to adhere to a template, so that the sections dealing