FIDIC’s latest official regional contract users’ conference, held on Wednesday 7 May 2025, focused on the Americas and Caribbean region and attendees at the online event received a comprehensive overview and update on the latest developments and trends around FIDIC contracts and their use in the region.
Opening the conference, FIDIC president Catherine Karakatsanis said that FIDIC continues to influence the global construction industry and the projects being delivered through the widespread use of its contracts. “These contracts are very highly regarded by leading global funding organisations like the World Bank and many of the international multilateral development banks, who use them as a key part of their standard bidding documents to help them deliver global projects worth billions around the world,” she said.
Karakatsanis highlighted that FIDIC’s contracts offered a fair and balanced approach to parties on major construction contracts and that this approach was underscored by FIDIC’s core values of quality, integrity and sustainability. “We also reinforce these values through the work of FIDIC’s training and capacity building activities which are also enhancing and strengthening the consulting industry worldwide,” she said.
The first session of the conference, Understanding FIDIC contracts – A Global and regional perspective, began with Vincent Leloup, chair of the FIDIC contracts committee and founder and managing partner of the contract support services consultancy Exequatur, giving an overview of FIDIC contracts and their use across the global construction industry. Leloup covered a lot of ground including FIDIC contracts’ approach to risk allocation, the various contracts available and which one to use for different kinds of projects, new contract initiatives on the way and the the various partnerships FIDIC has with the multilateral development banks. Leloup also highlighted the role of the FIDIC President’s List of Approved Dispute Adjudicators and their role in the use of FIDIC contracts.
FIDIC contracts committee member Deryl Earsom gave a USA and Canada perspective on the use of FIDIC contracts. He said that the contracts were not widely used for domestic projects, partly due to most public contracting bodies having their own legislatively required forms for contracts, though he pointed out that the Canadian and USA FIDIC member associations both promulgated standard contract documents, guides and training materials comparable to FIDIC contracts. Earsom made the point that the contracts were used when Canadian or US companies were operating projects outside of Canada or the US and on domestic projects for a foreign company employer that does not have experience with domestic contract forms.
Why FIDIC contracts work for the industry
The second session of the conference looked at How and why FIDIC contracts work well for you and was chaired by FIDIC’s chief legal and contracts officer Daduna Kokhreidze. She was joined on an interesting panel discussion by Karen Gough, a barrister from 39 Essex Chambers, Donald Charrett, a barrister, arbitrator, mediator and dispute board member and Pablo Laorden, managing partner at Lambol Abogados SLP. Karen Gough said that FIDIC was “a really good bet” when working on global construction projects as the contracts started from the premise of a fair and equitable allocation of risk standpoint and the funding institutions were supportive of the contracts.
Speakers in the session explored why FIDIC contracts are an effective tool for successful project execution and how the contracts lead to smoother project delivery and enhanced collaboration. The experts on the panel also looked at some of the essential contract drafting techniques, including the dos and don’ts of working with FIDIC contracts, with a focus on the ‘FIDIC Golden Principles’ that ensure clarity and fairness in contract terms. Karen Gough said that she thought that the Golden Principles were very important in providing a constant reminder of what should be included in a FIDIC contract.
“If it’s not broken then don’t try to fix it,” said Pablo Laorden as he stressed the need not to amend FIDIC contracts. The documents had been tried and tested in the marketplace and should only be altered if users were absolutely certain that any changes were absolutely essential to the efficient running of the project, he said. In his contribution, Donald Charrett highlighted his book, FIDIC Contracts in the Americas, which offered a practical guide to the application of the contracts across the region.
Highlighting risk allocation and the role of project participants
The next session of the conference, Effective contract management, risk allocation and the role of project participants, chaired by Adriana Spassova, partner at EQE Control, explored key aspects of contract management in FIDIC contracts, focusing on risk allocation, communication strategies and the essential roles of the project participants. The panellists included Luis Otavio Rosa, partner at Taroba Engenharia, Michael Valo, partner at Glanholt Bowles LLP and Douglas Fraser, head of procurement at the Caribbean Development Bank.
In terms of risk allocation, Douglas Fraser thought that that there was a “shift towards the middle” and a more sensible approach by the contract parties, which he said was a good thing for FIDIC. Luis Otavio Rosa also agreed that there was an increasing concern about risk allocation leading to a “good trend towards a more balanced risk allocation”. Fraser highlighted an absence of knowledge amongst some contractors about how FIDIC contracts worked and there was a need as a result for more training and capacity building. Addressing the importance of good communications on projects, Michael Valo said that often when disputes arose the contract parties adopted a “formalistic” stance which tended to entrench positions. “As soon as a formal notice goes out, it had the effect of parties getting their backs up and larger problems developing,” he said. Communications needed to be face to face, open and not merely confined to formal written letters, said Valo.
This session was followed by a discussion chaired by FIDIC contracts committee member Deryl Earsom on Dispute avoidance and adjudication in FIDIC contracts – growing role of the dispute boards, which discussed dispute avoidance and adjudication on construction projects, focusing on the growing role of dispute boards (DBs) in avoiding and resolving disputes. The panellists for this session included Yann Schneller, partner at DARCI, Swee Im Tan (pictured above), an international arbitrator at 39 Essex Chambers and Roberto Hernandez-Garcia, a partner at COMAD LATAM.
Given that dispute boards were gaining increasing traction on FIDIC-based projects, the panellists examined the importance of DBs in ensuring smooth project execution and preventing disputes from escalating. Speakers covered the practical aspects of dispute avoidance, the key role of DBs and the common challenges in implementing them on projects. Swee Im Tan said that there was an incorrect perception that DBs added cost to the running of projects and this needed to be challenged and addressed. Yann Schneller spoke about his experiences of dispute boards and the disconnect between what the FIDIC contract advocates and what happens in reality.
Despite the contracts providing for the appointment of a DB, many employers were bypassing this, said Schneller. “A DAB is sometimes perceived as ‘a bump in the road’ rather than as a tool to avoid and resolve disputes,” he said. Schneller also said that the entire dispute avoidance process could be scuppered by the engineer being prevented from playing their role in the contract. “Dispute boards are not being used to their full potential, which is unfortunate because the benefits of their use are immense,” he said. Schneller also highlighted the two dispute board guidance documents that FIDIC had published – FIDIC Practice Note I Dispute Avoidance - focusing on dispute boards and FIDIC Dispute Avoidance and Adjudication Forum - Practice Note II Appointment of Dispute Boards.
Roberto Hernandez-Garcia said that in reality the cost of dispute boards was relatively small when you considered how much their adoption could save in terms of cost and time when projects go wrong. “Notwithstanding that there are challenges, we have to talk about the benefits of using dispute boards in the region. They are a very important way to improve and increase collaboration among the parties to a contract whereby they can understand themselves better,” he said.
Using FIDIC contracts in the Americas and Caribbean region
The final session of the conference, Case studies and successful projects using FIDIC contracts – Insights from Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador and Costa Rica, showcased successful global projects that have used FIDIC contracts, highlighting best practices and lessons learned. This session, chaired by Alex Wagemann, founding partner of Wagemann Consulting, included panellists Rodrigo Juarez, consultant at FOA Consulting, Jaime Gray, a partner at Navarro Sologuren Paredes Gray Abogados and the international consultant Ignacio Palacios.
All the panellists were keen to share their experiences with FIDIC, offering practical tips to those interested in adopting FIDIC contracts in their own projects. They also provided some forward-looking insights into how FIDIC’s influence is expected to evolve across the Latin American infrastructure landscape in the future, which gave attendees some real food for thought. Jaime Gray highlighted some trends in the region that he said would help to encourage the use of FIDIC forms. “These moves serve the public interest,” said Gray.
Ignacio Palacios agreed with Gray about the positive signs of the increasing momentum towards the use of FIDIC in the region. He said that a key driver for this momentum was undoubtedly the endorsement of the multinational development banks for the use of FIDIC contracts. “We are seeing a regional push led by the international lending institutions to promote the use of more equitable, fair and transparent contracts that advocate better risk allocation and this is an opportunity for FIDIC to take a lead,” he said.
Rodrigo Juarez offered some reflections from Mexico, where he said that FIDIC contracts were not being used in the public sector. “The law does not permit the use of standard contracts currently so FIDIC contract use has been confined thus far to private contracts,” he explained. Citing favourably the agreements that FIDIC has signed with a number of multilateral development banks, Juarez said that these had yet to fully filter through to facilitating the use of FIDIC contracts in the country. He hoped that translating FIDIC contracts into the Spanish language would help in raising their profile and promoting their adoption in Mexico going forward.
Summing up the event, FIDIC board member Manish Kothari said that a lot of ground had been covered by the conference in a relatively short period of time. “I hope that following the discussions we have had you will understand better the real benefits to be gained from using FIDIC contracts on your projects,” he said. In his summing up, Kothari picked out the key issues of effective contract management, risk allocation and the role of project participants, where attendees learned how FIDIC contracts allocate risk between the contracting parties, helping project participants to manage issues as they arise and promote smoother project delivery.
Highlighting the key role of collaboration and collective action that is such a feature of FIDIC contracts, Kothari said he was reminded of the words of the former president of Uruguay, José Mujica, who said: “A better world is possible but we must build it together” and also those of Vincent van Gogh, who famously said: “Great things are done by a series of small things brought together”. “FIDIC can help us do all this in the construction sector,” he concluded.
