About Publications

Contracts and Agreement

The backbone of FIDIC's publications is FIDIC's selection of Contracts and Agreements.
FIDIC publishes conditions of contract for:

 

These documents are available from the FIDIC Bookshop in both the printed and electronic format. "Which FIDIC contract should I use" provides guidance in the choice of the most suitable contract for your project or client.

All FIDIC contracts standard conditions of contract between a client/employer and a contractor. The consulting engineer is not a party to these contracts, but plays a role as the employer's representative to see that the contract is properly carried out.
 
Additionally, FIDIC publishes a Client/Consultant Model Services Agreement (The White Book), which is the agreement often used by the client when appointing a consultant as his employer's representative for the above contracts.
 
This "rainbow" of FIDIC contracts/agreements provides the major portion of the total income from publication sales to FIDIC.

FIDIC's volunteer committees, who draft nearly all of FIDIC's documents, are continuously drafting or revising and keeping FIDIC's publications informative and up-to-date.

 

Other FIDIC publications

Information for clients, including guides for Quality Based Selection, Tendering Procedures, Consultant Selection and Quality of Construction and other valuable documents about the use of consulting engineers.

Information for consulting engineers, with manuals and guides on topics such as Risk Management, environment, Project Sustainability Management, capacity building, transfer of technology, Quality Management, Business Integrity Management, dispute resolution techniques, insurance, law and other business issues.
FIDIC Statutes and Bylaws.

 

Representation impact

Equally important for FIDIC is the representation and impact of its publications. Most people first learn about the Federation by reading or using its business practice publications and its standard conditions of contract. FIDIC's image is enhanced by its publication of quality documents.
 
The most pronounced example of this impact on the Federation's impact are FIDIC's Conditions of Contract for Works of Civil Engineering Construction ("The Red Book", owing to its red cover), now in its fourth edition. Many people call the Red Book "FIDIC" or "the FIDIC", mistakenly using the Federation's acronym (taken from its original French name, Fédération Internationale des Ingénieurs-Conseils) for its best known publication, unaware of the Federation, but certainly aware of its Red Book.
 
This confusion is not surprising, when one considers that the Red Book, now replaced by the Construction Contract, has been used as the general conditions in standard bidding documents of many development banks, including the World Bank. From 2005, the multilateral development banks (MDB) agreed to a MDB-harmonised version of the Construction Contract for incorporation in their standard bidding documents. 

 

Financial impact

FIDIC's publications fulfill an important and essential role for the well being of the Federation. Revenues from publication sales account for more than 25% of FIDIC's income.
 
FIDIC's annual income from publications has grown from about SFr. 300,000.- in the late 1980's to nearly SFr. 1 200,000.- in 2012. This growth in publications sales has allowed FIDIC to reduce the unit rates for membership subscriptions by nearly one-half over the past decade, an important impact when one considers that more than half of FIDIC's Member Associations are in developing countries, many of which have weak currencies.
 
With FIDIC being a non-profit, self-supporting Federation, which neither seeks nor accepts financial support from any other body, the essential role played by its publications sales cannot be over emphasized.

 

Ordering

All FIDIC documents can be ordered online at the FIDIC Bookshop.

Unless specified dowloadable PDF access is controlled by FileOpen encryption: viewing for 1 year; printing of 10 times the total number of pages in the document; text cannot be copied and pasted.

iPad Tablet version access is also controlled by FileOpen encryption: viewing for unlimited time; no printing allowed; text cannot be copied and pasted; document can only be installed on 1 device.

The Bookshop gives details such as:

  • Overview of contents.
  • Translations: all FIDIC documents are published in English and depending upon the need, in other languages. English remains the language of reference in case of legal dispute - see FIDIC Policy on Translations. However, other organizations often undertake to translate FIDIC documents, especially conditions of contract. The Bookshop indicates the translations that are available, and where they can be obtained if they are not stocked by the Bookshop
    Prices: all prices are in Euro.
  • Bespoke contracts: in a very limited number of special cases, FIDIC is prepared to licence organizations to prepare bespoke contracts for clients. Please see the page Request a Bespoke Licence and contact FIDIC for further information.
  • Special editions: in a very limited number of special cases, FIDIC is able to issue special watermarked electronic editions of documents for printing by organizers of courses and similar events, and for organizations who wish to supply FIDIC contracts to potential bidders. For more information, please contact the FIDIC Bookshop.