IMCA Publishes Renewables Contracting Principles

The ‘IMCA Renewables Contracting Principles’ can now be downloaded from the Safety and Legislation section of the The International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA, UK) website. In the document, IMCA presents the Renewables Contracting Principles, which are to a large extent similar to the other contracting principles published and are also based on the FAIR acronym.

FAIR, IMCA’s risk allocation goals, are as follows:

•      Fair (not equal) and realistic distribution of risk in proportion to relative rewards

•      Allocation of risk – to the party best placed to assume

•      Insure – sufficient scope of cover

•      Reasonable – avoid ‘duplicate’ assumptions of risk and minimise potential for dispute

The Principles are not intended to represent a complete analysis of all risks which are covered by contracts in the offshore renewables industry. In general, they reflect well-established industry custom and practice of addressing certain risks such as the knock for knock indemnity regime.

Different

The first ‘IMCA General Contracting Principles’ were published in May 2011, followed by the ‘IMCA Decommissioning Contracting Principles’. The renewables sector is a relatively new one in the industry and consists mainly of offshore wind farm construction and cable laying.  Whilst the ‘IMCA General Contracting Principles’ could be applied to this sector, a number of issues in the renewables sector differ from general offshore activities and it was felt that these needed to be addressed in the contracts made.

IMCA has published a variety of guides, templates and discussion documents aimed at raising awareness on contracting issues, promoting discussion and providing tools that may be useful for its contractor members, their clients and sub-contractors. They can be downloaded from the IMCA website.

Each of IMCA’s Contracting Principles’ documents (of which there are now five in addition to a discussion document and other associated documentation) is published as an aide to clients and contractors alongside their in-house standard contracts and other industry publications.