NEC4 and FIDIC Compared

This chapter compares NEC4 with the FIDIC suite of international construction contracts, with a focus on practitioners moving between the two contract families. The two are built on different philosophies, with NEC4 administering the contract collaboratively and in real time and FIDIC operating through retrospective claims and the Engineer’s determinations. The chapter sets out how the FIDIC Engineer’s combined administrative and decision-making role differs from the split NEC4 Project Manager and Supervisor functions, and how compensation events differ from the FIDIC Variations and Claims machinery. The remaining sections take programme, payment, design liability, physical conditions risk, dispute resolution, and the treatment of mutual trust and good faith point by point. The chapter closes with which contract suits which project, and the recurring failures that arise when practitioners apply one contract’s thinking to another.