| There are a number of forms of contract in international construction undertakings, among which the FIDIC conditions of contract are the most popular. The World Bank requires that all projects with the support of its capital should hold international public invitation of bidding and adopt the FIDIC contract. Hence, the contractors of our country should have profound knowledge of these widely-used conditions of contract before undertaking projects abroad. Disputes in international construction are inevitable due to the long time of international civil engineering, involvement of large amount money and many parties in interests, and different culture background and legal systems of those parties. The article tends to analyze the causes of disputes over FIDIC contract by introducing some major clauses in FIDIC contract and legal relations between or among the parties in interests. Three cases related to disputes over FIDIC contract conditions are analyzed as well. Based on this, the author gives suggestions to measures concerning disputes prevention and resolution of FIDIC contract.There are 5 chapters with about 39000 words in this article.Chapter 1: The author introduces briefly the forms of contract and the most popular contract form in international construction.Chapter 2: The author introduces some widely-used clauses in FIDICcontract, including fundamental and special clauses). He also makes exploration in the legal relations between the employer and contractor, employer and engineer, contractor and engineer, contractor and others in the contract of FIDIC.Chapter 3: The author herein analyzes causes of disputes in international construction. Generally, the main causes include changes of natural conditions such as geological changes in the site of building, engineer alteration such as alteration to engineering designs, changes of time limit for construction (often incurred by claims for construction delay), contract price adjustment (often incurred by claims for fees), pause of construction (at the disposal of engineers) and termination of the contract etc. In this chapter, the author analyzes the causes of disputes and resolutions to disputes based upon 3 typical cases.Chapter 4: The author puts forward effective measures for prevention of disputes by means of risk control and negotiation of contracts. In risk control, the measures include digital management of risk, insurance of projects, claims for compensation at a proper time, reduce of risk by sub-contract, and strengthening management of compensation claims etc. As to contract negotiation, the measures include determination of scope of task, proper handling of interpretation of terms and conditions in disputes, disclaimer clauses etc.Chapter 5: In this chapter, the author brings forward some suggestions on how to solve contract disputes. According to him, negotiation is the most popular way construction disputes resolution. But it is only for those matters that need to be solved immediately. Intermediation is one way for disputes resolution upon mutual consent by both parties. But it is not the primary way out of some reasons. DAB is an acceptable way to solve the disputes in recent years. It is mainly adopted to solve the conflict between requirement of neutrality for an engineer and his status as an employee of the contractor. But DAB also has its defects. Those are, they impair the engineer's authority and his power to control the project. Arbitration is the most popular way for disputes resolution. Therules of arbitration of ICC have been all along recognized by FIDIC. The author explores the function of arbitration as a means of disputes resolution and gives critical evaluation of its defects. Litigation is not a widely-used way in FIDIC contract disputes resolution because FIDIC, as an international organization, hopes to solve the dispute under its own rules through intermediation, DAB or arbitration rather than litigation. |
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