Is it all necessary? Who benefits? Provision for multi-tier dispute resolution in international construction contracts

Ellis Baker

January 2009

A paper presented to a joint meeting of the Society of Construction Law and the Society of Construction Arbitrators in London on 1st July 2008.

Ellis Baker looks at the development of multi-tier dispute resolution provisions in contracts, in particular considering the FIDIC forms from the 1st edition of the Red Book published in 1957 to the most recent editions of the various forms, from reference to the engineer and arbitration to the introduction of Amicable Settlement. He then considers the provisions in the Channel Tunnel and Hong Kong International Airport contracts, and the move towards panels of experts and dispute boards, alongside mediation in those and other contracts. He then poses the question of whether these multi-tiers benefit the parties, including drawing on the discussion at the meeting when the paper was presented.

Introduction - Background: how it was - Changes on the way: the late 1980s and early 1990s - Mega projects - Beyond FIDIC: developments in other standard forms - Does multi-tiered dispute resolution benefit the parties? - Looking forward: multi-tier dispute resolution in the UK - Conclusions.

The author: Ellis Baker MA, LLM (Cantab) is a partner in White & Case LLP, solicitors, and head of the Construction and Engineering Practice Group in its London office.

Text: 24 pages.
PDF file size: 192k