Contract Administration

Contract Administration

Can a Contractor Obtain Compensation for a Radical Increase in its Costs if a Construction Contract Contains No Price Escalation Clause?

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Christopher R. Seppälä, Elizabeth Lefebvre-Gross

Faced with a drastic increase in the cost of commodities—for example, of steel, or oil—that undermines the economic assumptions of a construction contract, lawyers trained in the common law may believe that, if the contract has no price-escalation clause, the only relief from the contract available is termination on the grounds of frustration, impossibility, or impracticability. In fact, outside the common law countries, it may be possible to obtain other relief, including an increase in the contract price, to take into account changed circumstances after a contract has been signed. Several examples are provided below. …

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Contract Administration

Caution: Contracts

by Dennis Brand

Ask a group of industry professionals to state what they believe to be the most important provision in a construction contract and you will probably get as many varied responses as there are people in the group.

Give the same group of people a copy of a standard form contract (e.g. FIDIC, ICE or JCT) to read with a form of Particular Conditions or similar attached, and invariably they will look first at the Particular Conditions and possibly no further. …

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Contract Administration

Take care when taking over

by Steven Hunt

I sense that, for many contractors, ‘taking over’ is seen as the moment when the proverbial foot can come off the gas – the time when the contractor is finally relieved of the burden of delivering the project.For a contractor the process of taking over is an important one as the care of the works will pass to the employer and the employer’s entitlement to recover liquidated damages will cease. It is not, however, the end of the story for the contractor as he will remain liable for defective workmanship and materials beyond handover. …

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Contract Administration

Gaining more control to ensure project success

In the first of two articles, Mukund Karnick, senior contracts advisor at Nakheel’s Palm Jebel Ali, discusses when the time is right for clients to take more control over building material selection and use.

In any construction project, the client requires that when the completed project is delivered, they get the exact quality in material and workmanship that was specified when finalising the design of the project. …

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