Comparative Study Of International Standard Conditions Of Contract For Design-Build/EPC Projects

Design-Build (also known as EPC) is a new project delivery system, which reflects the general rule of construction projects and has become the trend of international construction market. But its development in China is relatively slow and no standard conditions of contract is made in China for DB projects yet. The objective of the comparative study of international standard conditions of contract for DB projects in this paper is to draw the general rules of DB contract conditions and to borrow the benefits of international standard conditions of contract for DB projects as reference of the preparation of DB contract conditions in China.The first part presents the development of DB as a project delivery system both in and out of China, and summarizes its most distinguishing characteristics. The second part is a general introduction of the existing international standard conditions of contract for DB projects. Then the main issues and key clauses of a DB contract is analyzed based on the comparative study of the clauses of FIDIC's Silver Book of 1999 and Document A141 of AIA's DB Documents of 2004. At last, some suggestions for the preparation of China's standard conditions of contract for DB projects are provided. This paper builds a functional module framework of DB contract conditions, which is helpful for the systematic analysis and study of international standard conditions of contract for DB projects, and could be used as reference in the preparation of standard conditions of contract for DB projects in China or the contract conditions for a specific DB project.