ACESL to hold workshop on FIDIC contracts

The Association of Consulting Engineers Sri Lanka (ACESL) is to conduct two two-day FIDIC contracts workshops from 22 to 25 September at the Water’s Edge Hotel in Battaramulla,
The first workshop will be on ‘the Practical Use of FIDIC Conditions of Contracts’ and provide essential contractual knowledge about working on today’s international projects while the second will address ‘Management of Claims, Dispute Resolution, Dispute Boards and Adjudication under FIDIC Contracts’ for the construction industry.
The program is supported by the ADB–AusAID South Asia Development Partnership Facility and conducted by FIDIC-accredited trainer and engineer Geoffrey Smith.
The ACESL is the Sri Lanka member association of the FIDIC, the International Federation of Consulting Engineers.
ACESL Immediate Past President and Workshop Committee Chairman Malith Mendis said that these subjects have become all the more important due to the large number of infrastructural projects being carried out in Sri Lanka.
The workshop will examine the everyday use of contract documents and the concepts of variations, adjustments, claims, processing of claims, dispute boards and various other matters to do with contracts.
Mendis said: “This is not another dispute resolution workshop. We intend to look at ways of best using contract documents, dispute avoidance, to help you to prevent problems and prevent claims escalating to disputes. “We have intended here to have a large number attend this program in order to broadbase knowledge of FIDIC contracts, alternative dispute avoidance and resolution procedures. This was because ACESL feels that contract clauses and dispute boards are misunderstood in Sri Lanka.”
Dispute boards are now implemented in projects worldwide and ACESL promotes standing dispute boards rather than ad-hoc dispute boards. Standing boards have the capacity to know a project well, and has a role in avoiding disputes, preventing problems becoming disputes and preventing hostilities among the parties of a contract.
ACESL, as the member association of the FIDIC, the International Federation of Consulting Engineers, strives to impart professionalism by promoting best practice in the profession. ACESL has a list of FIDIC-trained adjudicators to provide dispute avoidance and resolution services. ACESL also promotes the enactment of a ‘Construction Industry Payment and Adjudication Act’ in Sri Lanka to mitigate the problematic payment scenario currently suffered by the construction industry and to give adjudication legal teeth.
Mendis also said: “We had a high demand for this type of workshop in the past, and we have been turning down those who wanted to participate due to all spaces taken up. We hope that those interested will take up this opportunity, as the cost has been heavily subsidized.” For further information contact 777720555 or 2680788.