Bruner And O Connor On Construction Law

Previous edition, 1st, published in 1998.

Now you can keep construction design exposure to a minimum! Prepared for design and construction professionals and their attorneys, this comprehensive, up-to-date resource is written by eminent authorities in the field. It details all relevant topics

This book chronicles how contract cases from the construction industry have influenced, solidified, refined and particularized U.S. contract law. The book’s central claim is that the construction industry experience has helped to contextualize U.S. contract law and, therefore, has encouraged the common law to be more receptive to flexible legal standards and practices and less constrained by the relatively rigid rules that often characterize contract law. Other scholarly books analyze the themes, values, standards, and principles of contemporary contract law, but none captures how construction industry relationships and practices have influenced the common law of contracts. After providing an overview of construction law as a specialty of the practicing bar and as a field for scholarly inquiry, this book examines the construction industry cases that have most directly influenced contract law. It reviews how industry dispute patterns have caused courts to refine contract law principles or to adapt and modify other principles. Separate chapters explain the special roles that cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and in the lower federal courts have played in defining and distinguishing contract law in the construction industry. The final chapters assess implications the construction industry cases hold for contract theory writ large, and for the future of contract law. This book is essential reading for legal scholars, construction law and contract law specialists, and those interested in how the construction industry has helped shape the U.S. legal system.

This book examines how the most commonly used construction project contracts are applied in a range of countries around the world. The specific situation of each of the almost 40 countries studies is dealt with in a dedicated chapter, allowing for easy comparison between differing legal and commercial environments. Each chapter contextualizes the relevant contracts within the legal and commercial systems prevalent in a particular country and examines a number of common issues impacting construction projects around the world. This unique book will be an essential resource for construction law specialists around the world because of its focus on commonly used contracts and the contextualizing of these contracts into the legal and commercial environment of each studied country. All contributions are from practicing construction project lawyers ensuring that the quality of the information and analysis is of the highest standard.

Conditions of Contract for Construction – known universally as the Red Book – published by the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (known by its French acronym FIDIC) is the most widely used standard form of international construction contract. This book is a detailed commentary on the 2022 reprint of the 2017 FIDIC Red Book. For each of the Red Book’s 168 Sub-Clauses the commentary: identifies changes from the 1999 edition; analyses the meaning and significance of the Sub-Clause and lists related Sub-Clauses; describes related international arbitration awards, national court decisions and legal principles; and, where appropriate, proposes amendments to improve the Sub-Clause. As the FIDIC Yellow and Silver Books are very similar to the Red Book, much of the commentary is equally applicable to those forms of contract. The author is a FIDIC ‘insider’ having served for more than thirty years as Legal/Special Adviser to, or Member of, the FIDIC Contracts Committee which is responsible for preparing FIDIC’s contracts. This book is an indispensable resource for all parties called on to work with a FIDIC contract. With guidance for every stage of a construction project, whether in drafting, negotiating, performing, interpreting, or administering a FIDIC contract, the book’s easy-to-use structure includes such issues and topics as the following: introduction to FIDIC and its contracts and to publications of FIDIC and others relevant to the Red Book including the 2022 FIDIC Contracts Guide; critical examination of each Sub-Clause and advice for amending the same in order to better adapt it to the interests of each party (the Employer or the Contractor); special attention to each Sub-Clause relating to the Contractor’s and the Employer’s claims and claims procedure and to how to assert claims effectively, as well as to time bars and other pitfalls and how they may be overcome; detailed examination of Sub-Clauses relating to the referral of issues or disputes to the Dispute Avoidance/Adjudication Board and, if necessary, to international arbitration, and optimal strategies for doing so; discussion of the changes required to the 2017 Red Book by The World Bank’s Conditions of Particular Application (‘COPA’); reference, where appropriate, to the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts and trade usages; comprehensive discussion of practical issues that arise under common law, civil law and international legal principles, especially when a contract is with a state or public body; comparison of common law and civil law methods of contract interpretation and a suggested practical approach to interpretation given a FIDIC contract’s international arbitration clause; and overcoming problems that can arise when a contract is governed by the law of a less-developed country. Legal and technical terms are clearly defined, and numerous figures and tables are included to illustrate steps in contract procedures. Detailed attention is paid to terminological distinctions among the various legal traditions, including a comparison of British-English and American-English construction contract terms. Unquestionably the most detailed and thorough commentary ever published on the FIDIC Red Book, this highly practical work enables preparers of FIDIC contracts to amend and adapt the Red Book’s provisions to a particular project. Dispute adjudicators, arbitrators, and judges will welcome the book’s authoritative guidance on interpreting the provisions of a FIDIC contract, and engineers and other construction professionals involved in contract administration will appreciate the book’s many practical features.

Most construction lawyers are familiar with the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Engineers Joint Contract Documents Committee (EJCDC) forms of agreements, and the newer ConsensusDOCS forms. The ConsensusDocs forms replace many of the forms previously issued by the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). Now completely revised, this invaluable resource offers a topic-by-topic comparison of these forms by providing: - An easy-reference guide to how the AIA, ConsensusDOCS and EJCDC forms treat the most significant issues in owner/contractor/subcontractor and owner/design professional agreements - Proposed alternative language for situations where the form contract approach may not provide the best solution - List comparing the most significant provisions from each of these forms (on the CD-ROM)