Dear readers,

We are delighted to introduce the September 2026 issue of Construction Law International (CLInt). Two of its feature articles grew out of panels held at the IBA Annual Conference in Toronto in November 2025, and we are pleased to see that work now reaching a wider readership.

The country updates open with Canada, where Andrea Lee reviews the continued spread of adjudication and prompt payment legislation across the provinces and recent court decisions on adjudication and other forms of alternative dispute resolution. From Chile, Elina Mereminskaya examines an ad hoc arbitral award of May 2026 which denied the Santiago International Airport concessionaire compensation for Covid-19-related construction costs, on the basis that the Public Works Concessions Law allocates construction-phase risk to the concessionaire. From Vietnam, Vu Le Bang outlines the new Law on Construction, which has been in force since 1 July 2026, and its implications for projects involving foreign parties.

The features begin with the two Toronto panels. Michael Earwaker, Co-Chair, Project Execution Subcommittee, and Ana Candida De Melho Carvalho, Secretary, summarise a session on risk allocation and force majeure in an era of abnormal weather, while Zach Torres-Fowler, Membership Officer, Janet Walker, Hermann Knott, Projects Officer, Mediation Committee, and Piergiorgio Zettera consider how decarbonisation policies in Italy, Germany and the United States are reshaping the regulatory, social licence and financing landscape for energy infrastructure. Rudo Magundani guides investors through Zimbabwe’s 2026 PPP Guideline, with particular attention to the lifecycle of unsolicited proposals and the bid-matching mechanism.

Isa Jeziah Dookie analyses the Privy Council’s decision in Uniform Building Contractors v The Water and Sewerage Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, which reaffirms that FIDIC notice provisions operate as conditions precedent, that termination does not revive time-barred claims and that the engineer cannot amend the contract. Marianne C Ramey asks why delay experts so often differ and argues that the treatment of contemporaneous programme updates, rather than the choice of method, usually explains the divergence. Engin Ertuş proposes practical tools for building trust during EPC negotiations for power projects, and Pedro Felipe Eraso explains how convertible notes can bridge early-stage funding gaps in infrastructure projects.

In this issue’s In-House Counsel Interview, Nick Cowie, General Counsel of WSP for the Middle East and Asia, speaks with Aarta Alkarimi, Co-Chair, about his career in the region and the challenges facing in-house teams on major projects.

We close with three book reviews: the second edition of Arbitration of Commercial Disputes by Andrew Tweeddale and Masood Ahmed, reviewed by Joanne Clarke; Building Defects Law by Darryl Royce, reviewed by Thayananthan Baskaran, Chair of the ICP Editorial Board, and Leezzie John; and the Handbook on Construction Law and Arbitration, edited by Krishan Singhania and Srishti Singhania, reviewed by Aleksander Godhe, Deputy Committee Editor.

We thank all our contributors for sharing their experience and insights. As always, we invite ICP members and all those interested in construction law to submit articles, updates, and news at any time to eric.franco@legaldelta.com.

Eric Franco
Committee Editor, IBA International Construction Projects Committee
Legal Delta, Lima
eric.franco@legaldelta.com

Aleksander Godhe
Deputy Committee Editor, IBA International Construction Projects Committee
King’s College London, London
aleksander.godhe@kcl.ac.uk