A Contractor's Guide to the FIDIC Conditions of Contract

This guide will help the contractor’s staff overcome some of the difficulties encountered on a typical international contract using FIDIC forms.

The majority of FIDIC-based contracts use the Red Book (Conditions of Contract for Construction), so this book concentrates on the use of those particular forms. Supplementary comments are included in Appendix C for the Yellow Book (Plant & Design-Build) recommended for use where the contractor has a design responsibility.
The Contractor is represented on site by the Contractor’s Representative who carries the overall responsibility for all the Contractor’s on-site activities. In order to provide guidance to the Contractor’s Representative and his staff, this book is divided into five sections:

• A summarized general review of the Red Book from the Contractor’s perspective.
• A review of the activities and duties of the Contractor’s Representative in the same clause sequencing as they appear in the Red Book.
• A summary of these activities and duties but arranged in order of their likely time sequence on site. This has the added intention of providing the Contractor’s Representative with a means of ensuring that documents are not only properly provided to the Employer and Engineer, but most importantly that they are provided within the time limits specified in the Contract.
• A selection of model letters is provided which make reference to the various clauses of the contract requiring the Contractor to make submissions to the Employer or Engineer.
• Various appendices.

The guide is not intended to be a review of the legal aspects of FIDIC- based contracts; legal advice should be obtained as and when necessary, particularly if the Contractor has little or no knowledge of the local law.

Armed on site with a copy of The Contractor and the FIDIC Contract, the Contractor’s Representative will be more able to avoid contractual problems rather than spend considerable time and energy resolving those problems once they have arisen.