An in-depth reading and classification of the roles of the engineer under the FIDIC’s 1999 red book.

Abstract

Even though the relationship between the Engineer and the Contractor is not defined through a formal contractual agreement, the duties and roles of the Engineer are at the core of the contract organizing the relationship between the Employer and the Contractor. Thus, the Engineer can be a prime contributor to the success or failure of a construction project. Traditionally, the role of the Engineer has been carried out by the design consulting firm in charge of not just designing, advising the Employer and supervising the work, but also contract administrating, adjudicating and arbitrating in case of dispute. This superhuman quasi-judicial burden that the 1987 FIDIC Red Book laid on the Engineer’s shoulders, has received an amount of criticism, enough to give birth to the 1999 FIDIC Red Book, delete the impartiality clause and assign the “Engineer’s Decision” to a DAB without restricting the liberty of the Employer to re-endorse it in the particular conditions. Due to the increase of the projects’ size and complexity, the Employer tends to assign other entities for handling the managerial and administrative tasks normally required of the Engineer. An attempt to provide the Employer with a better understanding of the nature and type of the different roles the 1999 Red Book assigned to the Engineer will be the objective of this paper. An in-depth reading of the new Red Book, investigating a method that can help more rigorously classify the identified roles will be the followed methodology. And a matrix of roles that can be exclusively assigned to the design consulting entity as opposed to the roles that can be assigned to other equally or better qualified entities and the other roles that cannot be assigned to the designer in a good practice, will be discussed. Finally, a set of recommendations and guidelines will be proposed to be used by construction industry practitioners.