Читать книгу The 2017 FIDIC Contracts - William Godwin - Страница 32

The governing law of a contract is the system of law according to which the rights, obligations and liabilities of the parties to the contract are to be determined. A system of law should be agreed which is reliable and sufficiently sophisticated to allow for the complexities of the contract and the project to which it relates. As noted in Section 1.2 above, the FIDIC forms have UK origins and important features of the forms reflect English or common law concepts. FIDIC contracts have, however, been used successfully whatever the governing law and a feature of the contracts historically, as well as the 2017 editions, has been to ensure as far as possible that the general conditions are neutral with respect to the particular governing law chosen by the parties.

The governing law is to be distinguished from the law relating to the procedure for deciding a dispute which might arise under or in connection with the contract. A dispute arising under a contract governed by, for example, New York law may be resolved by arbitration in Paris or London or Singapore. If the arbitration has its seat in London then any procedural matters relating to the arbitration, such as a serious irregularity in the process, will be dealt with by applying English procedural law, contained mainly in the Arbitration Act 1996; that Act will also determine the extent to which a party might be able to set aside an arbitral award on the basis that the tribunal lacked jurisdiction, for example, or the extent of a party's right to appeal an award on a point of law.