International experts to discuss contract practices in Trinidad

Distinguished international experts on procurement contracts will be in Trinidad to lead discussions at an international conference to take place at Ambassador Hotel, Port of Spain on May 5 and 6, 2008.

Sir William Francis will head the discussants at the conference on Procurement and Management of International EPC Contracts, along with Andrew Goddard, QC; Dr Christopher Elliot of Pitchill Consulting and Akbar Ali of the international commercial law firm, AFA Law. The others are Steven Coppack, Principal, Construction & Engineering Law Ltd, Dr Stuart Carmichael, Director, Critical Path Ltd of the UK and Winston Riley President of the Joint Consultative Council for the Construction Industry of Trinidad and Tobago.

The conference comes in the wake of concerns expressed by the local industry over contract procedures and practices. 

Participants will be eligible to receive Continuing Professional Development credits and full time tertiary level students will be admitted at two for the price of one.

Organised by First Forum International Limited, a global leader in training and conferencing, a number of local speakers will also participate in the two-day event which will bring together leading experts from the Caribbean and the international community of Caribbean-based construction, infrastructure, gas and petro-chemical industries.

With particular focus on large-scale projects with international contractors, the conference will provide a comprehensive review of different types of contract for project delivery – from employer’s design to turnkey EPC and hybrid forms. It will deal with the apportionment of risk, project management, claims, delay analysis and dispute resolution.

Interested persons are asked to contact conference coordinator, Dr Kris Rampersad at 390-9367 or email kriscivica@yahoo.com and visit the website at www.firstforuminternational.com.

Distinguished speakers

Sir William Francis, the former President of the UK Institution of Civil Engineers, has extensive experience in major construction projects both in the UK and overseas including petrochemical, manufacturing and steel fabrication plants, bridges, power stations and offshore platforms. For some 30 years he has served on a number of Government Advisory Boards in the UK, including the former British Railways Board and British Overseas Trade Board and the Export Credit Guarantee Department.

Andrew Goddard QC has been in practice at the English bar since 1985 and took silk in 2003. He has significant experience in international commercial and investments arbitration and has appeared in many disputes that were referred to arbitration under the auspices of the International Chamber of Commerce, ICC, among others. He specialises in the law of commercial obligations and professional negligence, particularly in the context of disputes concerning major construction and engineering contracts and IT projects. He has been much involved in energy, infrastructure and telecommunications disputes and has acted for main contractors, sub-contractors, professionals and employers, including national and foreign governments.

Dr Chris Elliott is an engineer and a barrister, working at the boundary between engineering and law on the governance of system risk with companies, associations and government bodies to find practical solutions to problems that arise from the regulation of technology. With more than two decades experience in high-technology consulting, his clients come from transport, energy and the environment, construction, manufacturing and defence. He has worked extensively with the railways in the UK and across Europe, and is a non-executive Director of the Office of Rail Regulation. He has also worked closely with clients in other fields, particularly the construction industry and other modes of transport, and teaches engineering and law at several universities, including as a Visiting Professor at Imperial College and Bristol.
  
Akbar Ali, Principal of AFA Law, is a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales who has practised for more than 30 years exclusively in the Energy and Construction law fields in the UK and internationally. He has represented owners, contractors and consulting engineers in relation to contentious and non-contentious matters. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, the International Bar Association and an accredited Arbitrator with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce. He lectures widely on process engineering and construction law topics.

Steven Coppack, Principal, Construction & Engineering Law Limited, is a Chartered Quantity Surveyor and Solicitor with more than 25 years experience in construction and engineering issues in many overseas jurisdictions advising on measurement and quantum issues for the quantification of claims for additional costs and losses. From joining James R Knowles Contract Consultants in 1990 he rose through the ranks and was appointed Executive Director in February 2002 with full responsibility for the Italian market.  He has conducted FIDIC training for the European Union in Romania and is currently publishing a book on FIDIC Forms of Contract. he has acted as an Expert Witness in a major quantum dredging and rock replacement arbitration in the UK.

Dr Stuart Carmichael is Executive Director of Critical Path Limited specialising in project planning, forensic planning, risk assessment and project control.  He has worked on arbitration and adjudication cases undertaking programme reconstructions, retrospective delay analysis and programme recovery.  Stuart was a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Salford responsible for managing research projects which included the development of a Delay Analysis Process and Event management toolkit to assist in the preparation and presentation of delay and disruption evaluations and the development of Offsite Manufacturing Implementation Processes.  Lately, he has been undertaking training programmes on behalf of the European Union for Eastern European Government on project planning, programming/ scheduling and methods of contemporaneous and retrospective delay analysis.   

Winston Riley is President of the Joint Consultative Council for the Construction Industry of Trinidad and Tobago, and has held this post since 1998. He is also a Fellow and Past President of the Association of Professional Engineers of Trinidad & Tobago, is registered with the Board of Engineering of Trinidad and Tobago, is Past President of the Trinidad & Tobago Contractors Association and is a Member of the following organisations: SAVE International, The Value Society, Caribbean Academy of Sciences, and the Project Management Institute, USA. A futuristic leader, Winston Riley continues to redefine the landscapes in which the organisations he leads operate. As Managing Director/Project Principal of Planning and Stantec Ltd, Endeco (Trinidad Ltd) and Planning Associates Ltd, he continues to set standards in line with best practices.