From the Co-Chairs – Construction Law International – March 2022

Dear ICP members,

Our term in office ended on 31 December 2021. At the International Construction Projects Committee Business Meeting in December we were delighted to report on activities of the past year, and undertake a virtual handover of the ICP hard hats to new Co-Chairs Jean-Pierre van Eijck of SPANT Advocaten BV in the Netherlands and Joe Moore of Hanson Bridgett in San Francisco, US, as well as announcing the new team of officers for 2022–2023.

When preparing to take up office in 2019, we mapped out what we would need to do with our roles as Co-Chairs being focussed around the traditional in-person conferences. We were looking forward to IBA Annual Conferences in Miami (2020) and Paris (2021), our ICP Working Weekend in Vevey, Switzerland, the SEERIL Biennial in Marrakesh and the ICP Biennial in Berlin.

Unfortunately, none of our travel plans were able to come to fruition. We quickly had to re-plan and, over the two years have, as a team, delivered a series of 12 webinars, four masterclass events, three social events on Remo and two business meetings. There have also been a number of Sub-Committee and Diversity and Inclusion projects as well as our joint project with the European Court of Arbitration to present for the first time a unique online Construction Arbitration Course covering a diverse set of topics through 25 weekly lectures for which over 700 people registered.

Our fantastic CLInt team worked hard to deliver quarterly editions of the journal, packed with great content from around the world.

We were delighted that the IBA offered the ICP the opportunity to participate in a LinkedIn trial. The ICP LinkedIn group was launched in August 2021 and we are excited at the opportunities it provides for its members to connect, communicate and exchange ideas. Please do join the group, submit posts and participate in discussions via this link: www.linkedin.com/groups/12550671. With any return to being able to meet up in person likely to be gradual, the group is particularly important to us.

All of these events and projects have allowed us to connect regularly with Committee members and have given many members the opportunity to engage with ICP and participate in events. It has been great to be in contact with so many members and to have had such extensive participation.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the commitment and work of our team of officers, the IBA team and the many members who participated. Our officers and the CLInt team have met via Teams calls on a monthly basis over the last two years – no mean feat for many, particularly with the challenge of time zones ranging from Melbourne to Seattle. We are grateful to everyone for their contributions allowing us to pass ICP into the capable hands of the new team in good heart.

We are very much looking forward to having the opportunity to meet up in person and attending our long-awaited Working Weekend in Vevey and the SEERIL Biennial in May 2022 and other events which we hope can take place this year.

We are privileged to have had the opportunity to lead ICP over the last two years. Going forward, we know that Jean-Pierre, Joe and their team of officers will do a fantastic job in looking after ICP. We wish them the very best for their terms in office.

Shona Frame and Ricardo Barreiro-Deymonnaz
ICP Co-Chairs
shona.frame@cms-cmno.com
​​​​​​​rbarreiro@bodlegal.com