Contractual documentation: General Conditions of Contract

The contract normally comprises several different documents, as outlined in the following five pages:

The General Conditions of Contract specifies the core contractual rights and obligations of the parties, such as:

• approval of work
• calculation of price
• payment terms
• how variations to the contract may be instructed and valued
• how changes and delays to the contract programme are dealt with
• the role and powers of the project engineer
• arbitration.

It is often a standard form document published by an international institution for the specific types of work in question (e.g. FIDIC, JCT, NEC).