International Construction Law Review
The New FIDIC Suite 2017: Significant Developments and Key Changes
Frédéric Gillion,1 Rob Morson,2 Sarah Jackson,3 and Chloé De Jager4 5
INTRODUCTION
It has been almost a year since the launch of the second edition of the FIDIC Suite of Contracts (“2017 Edition”). In a previous article published in the ICLR,6 we commented on the proposed changes introduced by the pre-released version of the new Yellow Book (“Test Edition”) and the debate that ensued throughout 2017 over some of those proposed amendments which had raised significant concerns amongst, in particular, Contractors’ organisations.
It would seem that the release at the end of 2016 of the Test Edition was a fruitful exercise as some of the comments and criticisms made in 2017 led to quite a few changes in the final version of the 2017 Edition of the YB (“2017 YB”) that was released (together with the 2017 Edition of the Red Book (“2017 RB”) and the Silver Book (“2017 SB”)) during the International Contract Users’ Conference in December 2017.
Are those changes enough to address the original concerns raised in respect of the Test Edition and ensure the 2017 Edition be used in practice? In the predecessor to this article, we commented cautiously that only time would tell us how popular the 2017 Edition will be, and it did not in fact take too long for us to see some projects being tendered on the basis of the 2017 Edition, particularly the editions of the 2017 YB and SB. With its emphasis on contract management, the 2017 Edition creates a higher administrative burden which will require additional resources for all Parties involved – Employer, Engineer and Contractor – to properly administer those contracts. There is no doubt that the complexity and the length of some of the new clauses implementing this approach (which result in a much longer contract) will be met with resistance from some traditional FIDIC users.
1 Partner, Pinsent Masons LLP (Paris).
2 Partner, Pinsent Masons LLP (Johannesburg).
3 Senior Associate, Pinsent Masons LLP (London).
4 Associate, Pinsent Masons LLP (Johannesburg).
5 The views expressed herein are entirely those of the authors and not necessarily those of the firm or organisation with which they are affiliated.
6 Gillion and Cottrell, “New Yellow Book (2017): A case of when more (words) mean less (clarity)?”, [2017] ICLR 349–374. For the benefit of readers who have not yet had the opportunity to read the previous article, a number of relevant provisions are repeated in this article.
Pt 4] Significant Developments and Key Changes
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