In recent years St. Petersburg has earned a reputation as an investment center with numerous greenfield projects. Greenfield projects involving the construction of industrial and sports facilities, transportation infrastructure, and residential developments, are underway. In the auto industry alone, four assembly plants have been built recently or are under construction (Toyota, Hyundai, General Motors, Nissan), [...] read more »

If you are a construction contractor accustomed to operating in common law jurisdictions where the doctrine of “freedom of contract” is generally upheld, you should be aware that the position under UAE law is different. We explore how it is different below …
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U.S. courts in recent years have imposed stricter obligations on individuals sitting as arbitrators to disclose to the parties fully any facts or circumstances that may give rise to doubts about their impartiality or independence. As a result, the arbitrators’ mantra has become “disclose, disclose, disclose.” Indeed, it has become fairly common in [...] read more »

In the wake of the current downturn, employers will increasingly look for greater budget certainty under EPC or Turnkey contracts. This is where the contractor undertakes all tasks – design, construction, management etc – so that, upon completion, the employer merely needs to ‘turn the key’ and operation of the plant or building can [...] read more »

While arbitration is often touted as being a less expensive alternative to litigation, the initial cost of initiating arbitration has always been considerably more expensive than filing in court. Typical filing fee in a U.S. court is a few hundred dollars, while administering authorities typically have filing fees in the thousands of dollars. [...] read more »

Recap
After a diversion a fortnight ago to address the newsworthy events in Dubai, normal service resumes with this blog. The previous two blogs in this series considered decennial liability and liability for harmful acts under UAE law.
This blog will briefly consider whether it is possible to limit liability under your contract eg by including [...] read more »

Commentary on the decision rendered by the third civil chamber of the Cour de Cassation (French Supreme Court) on September 9, 2009
To protect the contractor from the risk of the owner’s insolvency, the law No. 94-475 of June 10, 1994 on the prevention and treatment of the difficulties encountered by contractors instituted the obligation for [...] read more »

There is a lot of mystery regarding taxation of Construction activities in India. The mystery starts from the fact that a Construction contract involves both labour and material and hence, both Service tax and Value Added tax is levied on one transaction. The process becomes more complex depending upon a number of factors such as [...] read more »

With global business headlines currently dominated by debt restructuring issues facing Dubai World, the Gulf region is again subject to the negative gaze of the West. Despite this, the UAE and the broader Gulf region is likely to be a fertile region for major international contractors over the coming years.
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The capacity of an unsuccessful tenderer to challenge a contract award which breaches public procurement rules will be strengthened on 20th December with the coming into force of new Regulations implementing an EU Directive on Remedies. The new Regulations introduce a declaration of “Ineffectiveness” as a remedy for certain breaches of procurement rules and provide [...] read more »