Record-breaking FIDIC contracts webinar held

A recent webinar on FIDIC contracts was attended by more than 1,600 people on Zoom and You Tube, a record turnout for any FIDIC event ever.

The webinar, FIDIC contracts – the gold standard for projects, was attended by 1,000 people on Zoom with more than 600 others watching live on You Tube. The event looked at why FIDIC contracts were widely and increasingly seen as the gold standard for global infrastructure, engineering and construction projects and the benefits and confidence that they bring to all parties.

Speakers at the event included Pablo Laorden, managing partner at Lámbal Abogados in Spain, Karen Gough, barrister and attorneyat-law at 39 Essex Chambers in the UK, Haroon Niazi, partner and head of Middle East at HKA in the United Arab Emirates, Ellis Baker, partner and global head of construction and engineering at White & Case in the UK and Daduna Kokhreidze, FIDIC’s general counsel.

Karen Gough of 39 Essex Chambers stressed the importance of FIDIC contracts continuing to develop and staying ahead of emerging trends in the marketplace. “Getting the best deal that you can does not necessarily getting the best contract and we need to retain our humanity and the way that we work with one another,” she said, highlighting the need to work collaboratively.

Haroon Niazi from HKA said that those who weren’t currently using FIDIC contracts were missing out and they needed to get on board. Asked about the issue of the disputes mechanism in FIDIC contracts not appearing to be as effective in preventing issues in the Middle East, Niazi said that the role of the engineer was crucial especially when contracts amendments were being contemplated. “In the Middle East we do like to change things,” he said while stressing that any changes needed to be made in accordance with FIDIC’s Golden Principles to safeguard the veracity of contracts.

Ellis Baker from White & Case spoke about how FIDIC contracts might need to develop in the future. “Moving forward, FIDIC will need to be astute about the criteria in its contracts to cope with new developments in the industry but judging by its position in the market so far I am confident that the contracts will keep pace with industry changes,” he said.

Pablo Laorden of Lámbal Abogados highlighted the “huge opportunity” in sectors like wind farms, where developers were looking for project certainty in a developing area and FIDIC contracts were ideally placed to help in that regard. He also said that having contracts translated into Spanish and Portuguese was crucial.

Daduna Kokhreidze, FIDIC’s general counsel, stressed the need to use FIDIC’s Global Principles. “It is important to keep the balance of risk allocation as they are outlined in the FIDIC contracts, so it is important that the contracts are used in the way that they were intended and the Golden Principles can help with this,” she said.