Abstract
The use of the FIDIC Red Book in Romania Nowadays, FIDIC forms of contract are intended to be suitable for projects carried out around the world by all types of employers, often in a civil law environment with the extensive support of large investors such as the World Bank or the European Union. FIDIC documents, being the most popular conditions for construction contracts, are also used as contract conditions in Romania for public procurement mainly for road and bridge projects by the Ministry of Transportation or RNCMNR (here referred to as the employer). 1 FIDIC recommends its Conditions for international use.
They have two parts—the Specific and the General Conditions. FIDIC warns against changing the General Conditions and recommends that changes because of local law requirements or aspects of the project should made in the Specific Conditions.
There is no doubt that the FIDIC standard forms are helpful for domestic use as well, mainly in places which lack traditional model forms of contracts or where strong international competition is expected. From 2000 to 2010 the Romanian authorities worked mainly with the Red Book (First Edition, 1999) given the fact that Romanian legislation (relating to design and quality in construction and finance) requires the completed works to be measured, using unit and item prices that cannot be varied.
However the employer has constantly faced several problems in developing its proposed projects such as: slow procedure to ensure due access to the site according to clause 2.1 [ Right of Access to the Site ]; errors in the initial setting-out data under clause 4.7 [ Setting Out ]; mistakes in the site data under clause 4.10.