FIDIC contracts extend their global influence

With more leading organisations signing up to use FIDIC contracts, new versions and translations being launched and new appointments to the contracts committee, this update highlights another busy period for the contracts team at FIDIC.

This newsletter has many times in the past highlighted some of the leading organisations that have signed up to use FIDIC contracts helping them to become the industry standard contract documents across the global construction sector. We are particularly pleased to report that UK nuclear power station megaproject Hinkley Point C is using the FIDIC Yellow Book in bespoke format for numerous contracts. In fact, the project has been using FIDIC since 2015 and the Sizewell C nuclear project will also be using our contracts going forward.

It is significant that a megaproject like Hinkley has signed up to use the FIDIC contracts and once again underlines their popularity in the global construction marketplace. The European Organisation for Nuclear Research, (CERN), the research centre that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world in Switzerland, is also using FIDIC and we were delighted to undertake a site visit to the project earlier this year.

CERN also translated the FIDIC Green Book 2021 and White Book 2017 into French, making both available for use in May 2022. Elsewhere, the Thai translation of the Rainbow Suite 2017 was completed in March 2022, there is now a Portuguese version of the Red Book 2017, Yellow Book 2017 and Gold Book 2008, thanks to the input of another of our partners, the World Bank and we have signed a licence to have the Green Book 2021 translated into Vietnamese and recently completed a version of the Red Book 2017 into Lithuanian.

New user-friendly versions of FIDIC contracts and agreements are now available following the publication of documents in multiple-user versions and in two new formats for practitioner and educational use. The new versions are more sustainable, eliminate shipping and customs costs and delays and are more user friendly and easier to share than ever before. Easier to share, we hope that these versions will be widely used across the global engineering, construction and infrastructure industry.

The FIDIC contracts committee has been busy too. Recent highlights included the completion of a survey from the task group responsible for collaborative contracting development. Also, the establishment of new task groups took place in recent months with responsibility for: - a FIDIC Handbook for Practitioners (1999 and 2017 suites), FIDIC subcontracts developments, an agreement for JV contractors and a PPP form of contract. We have also reignited a task group to develop a 2017 Suite of Agreements Guide. Finally, the FIDIC contracts committee is also working on establishing a new task group to develop guidelines for the incorporation of net zero and net resource requirements on FIDIC contracts. Finally, the FIDIC board has appointed two new vice chairs to the FIDIC contracts committee - Adriana Spassova from Bulgaria and Mahmoud Abu Hussein from the United Arab Emirates. Adriana and Mahmoud replace previous vice chairs Husni Madi and Kiri Parr, who have completed their terms as vice chairs but will remain as key members of the contracts committee.

New formats of the FIDIC contracts have been published, including one for educational use.