2 FIDIC Contract Users’ Newsletter
How FIDIC contracts are produced Many participants at FIDIC’s contract users’ conferences have expressed an interest in understanding the FIDIC contract creation process. FIDIC working group chair, HUSNI MADI, who is also the CEO of Shura Construction Management, explains all. Huge effort and an intricate process lies behind the production of FIDIC contracts and the whole process is overseen by FIDIC’s contracts committee, which is responsible for drafting all FIDIC contracts. Several task groups assist the contracts committee in drafting publications and both are composed of knowledgeable professionals operating on a voluntary basis. Task groups report back to the contracts committee, which reports to the FIDIC board. Task group members are appointed by the contracts committee. Inception phase Once appointed, task group members are presented with terms of reference for a specific publication by the contracts committee and the group then meets in person to brainstorm how to develop the publication. This inception phase concludes with an inception report which outlines how the task group will go about its work. The report is reviewed by the
contracts committee and then the drafting process begins. Drafting phase The task group compiles all comments, observations, suggestions and current best practice from across the global construction industry and decides on its relevance to the publication it is working on. This ensures that FIDIC publications provide users with the most up-to-date best practices. Further enhancements are made to the contents of the inception report, in addition to contracts committee comments, and the final document begins to take shape. The drafting phase ends with the submission of the A-draft by the task group to the contracts committee, which then begins its review of the document. Review phase After concluding its review of the A-draft, the contracts
committee relays its comments to the task group, which takes these on board and produces a B-draft. The B-draft is reviewed by special advisors, highly respected senior experts and permanent FIDIC contributors, who give their feedback and a C-draft is produced which is then circulated to ‘friendly reviewers’ for their feedback. These friendly reviewers are expert professionals from within the FIDIC family, not involved in the drafting of the document, who act as peer reviewers of the draft publication. This feedback is then transmitted to the task group and a D-draft is produced which is then sent to legal advisors for their review. These internationally recognised lawyers ensure that FIDIC publications are legally sound and comply with international jurisdictions. Following this phase, the task group updates the D-draft
and produces a final draft for submission to the FIDIC board, which decides on final publication. Publishing phase Once the board approves a document, the FIDIC secretariat then assumes responsibility for publishing the document, organising its design, printing, sales, marketing and launch. Thereafter, the publication takes on a life of its own where FIDIC collects feedback from users across the global construction industry. This feedback is vital to the future updating of FIDIC publications as they evolve to reflect users’ actual experience and best practices. As you can see, significant effort lies behind the production of FIDIC publications and the critical acclaim and esteem in which these documents are held is well justified.