International Construction Law Review
WILL THE SILVER BOOK BECOME THE WORLD BANK’S NEW GOLD STANDARD? THE INTERRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE WORLD BANK’S INFRASTRUCTURE PROCUREMENT POLICIES AND FIDIC’S CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTS
MATTHEW BELL
Construction Group, Clifford Chance, London *
1. INTRODUCTION
In December 2003, a high-level delegation of the Fédération Internationale des Ingénieurs-Conseils
(FIDIC) visited several Washington-based international agencies to follow up on joint initiatives.1
The agencies visited by FIDIC included the World Bank.
The Bank has been reported to be developing, in conjunction with the other major Multilateral Development Banks, harmonised bidding and proposal documents for civil works. A primary purpose of FIDIC’s visit was to discuss the potential for incorporation of the FIDIC Construction Contract
, published in 1999,2
into such harmonised standard bidding documents. FIDIC has indicated that the Development Banks are considering full incorporation of a revised form of that contract.3
In light of this development, this article:
* This article is a revised form of a paper submitted for the Masters of Construction Law, University of Melbourne.
1 FIDIC News
, December 2003, item 46Ac.
2 Conditions of Contract for Construction for Building and Engineering Works Designed by the Employer (1st ed., 1999), referred to in this article as the “New Red Book”
. This article uses the following abbreviated references in relation to other standard form contracts published by FIDIC:
Green Book—
Short Form of Contract (1st ed., 1999).
New FIDIC Suite—
the New Yellow Book, New Red Book, Silver Book and Green Book.
New Yellow Book
—Conditions of Contract for Plant and Design-Build for Electrical and Mechanical
Plant and for Building and Engineering Works, Designed by the Contractor (1st ed., 1999).
Orange Book
—Conditions of Contract for Design-Build and Turnkey (1st ed., 1995).
Red 4th
—Conditions of Contract for Works of Civil Engineering Construction (4th ed., 1987).
Silver Book—
Conditions of Contract for EPC/ Turnkey Projects (1st ed., 1999).
Yellow 3rd
—Conditions of Contract for Electrical and Mechanical Works including Erection on Site (3rd ed., 1987).
Generally:
- this article adopts the convention of the New FIDIC Suite by referring to the principal/owner/ proprietor entity as the “employer”; and
- references in this article to terms defined in the relevant contract forms follow the convention of those forms by capitalising the first letter of those terms.
3 FIDIC News
, above, note 1.
Pt 2]
The World Bank and FIDIC’s Construction Contracts
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