HYPERINFLATION IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY: EUROPEAN HARDSHIP - PDF document

Reprinted from the American College of Construction Lawyers Journal with permission of Thomson/West. For more information about this publication please visit www.west.thomson.com. HYPERINFLATION IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY: EUROPEAN “HARDSHIP” PRINCIPLES VERSUS THE AMERICAN DOCTRINE OF IMPRACTICABILITY OF PERFORMANCE Daniel D. McMillan * KeyCite L : Cases and other legal materials listed in KeyCite Scope can be researched through the KeyCite service on Westlaw L . Use KeyCite to check citations for form, parallel references, prior and later history, and comprehen- sive citator information, including citations to other decisions and secondary materials. I. INTRODUCTION Rapid escalation in the price of construction materials, highlighted by the well-documented spike in steel prices begin- ning in 2003, has had a substantial impact on the construction industry in the United States and across the globe. Aside from precipitating lawsuits, bankruptcies, and project cancellations, the hyperinationary market conditions of recent years spotlight a somewhat stark divergence in legal principles and contracting approaches between those accepted in the United States and those developing in Europe. This divergence has assumed increas- ing importance due to the growing European economic inuence on projects located in the United States, the expanding presence of American Žrms on European soil, and the multinational nature of participants on large construction projects throughout the * Mr. McMillan is a partner in the Los Angeles o�ce of Jones Day where he cochairs the Žrm's international construction practice. The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and do not necessarily reect those of the law Žrm with which he is associated. 35

Journal of the ACCL world. American construction lawyers no longer can think of European principles as a matter only of intellectual curiosity. American lawyers are increasingly being asked to provide guid- ance concerning contract principles that are very much at odds with traditional American approaches. One glaring dierence between contract principles and prac- tices in the United States and those developing in Europe concerns Žnancial hardship resulting from the market risk of hyperination. In the United States, the main contract provision used to address market risk is the narrowly tailored price adjust- ment or escalation clause, which usually applies to speciŽed materials. In the absence of such a clause, a contractor seeking to avoid performance might invoke the doctrines of impracticability of performance or frustration of purpose as excuses for nonperfor- mance—doctrines that seldom (if ever) provide relief for mere increases in price. Developing European principles and contract- ing practices are much broader. They often authorize termination for hardship or, in the alternative, compelled renegotiation or re- writing of contracts by courts or arbitrators. These approaches to hardship might apply in the case of hyperination and deviate dramatically from approaches familiar to most American construction lawyers. By way of example, the International Institute for the UniŽca- tion of Private Law (Unidroit) has developed the Unidroit Principles of International Commercial Contracts (UPICC). These principles, Žrst adopted in 1994, and revised in 2004, included a so-called principle of “hardship.” In essence, this principle provides that a party who establishes “hardship” is entitled to request “renegotiation” and, if that fails, a court Žnding that hardship exists may: (i) terminate the contract; or (ii) “adapt the contract with a view toward restoring its equilibrium.” The UP- ICC deŽnes “hardship” as “the occurrence of events” that “fundamentally alter[ ] the equilibrium of the contract . . . because the cost of a party's performance has increased,” provided that four other factors are satisŽed, factors similar to those underlying the doctrines of impracticability and frustration in the United States. More signiŽcantly, the UPICC hardship principle: (i) applies to any event that causes the cost of a party's performance to increase (not just price escalation); and (ii) authorizes a court to terminate the contract or essentially rewrite the contract to restore the “equilibrium of the contract.” This is a signiŽcant departure from the traditional approach to construc- tion contracts in the United States and one with signiŽcant potential implications. No longer can construction lawyers ignore the UPICC hardship 36

Hyperinflation in the Construction Industry principle and similar international principles just because their practice is limited to domestic U.S. contracting. The world is small and becoming smaller all the time. This is true of the construction industry and is happening in ways that make it far more likely that a lawyer in the United States may be asked to address UPICC hardship principles or other European ap- proaches to hardship. At the same time, as the recent hyperination was taking place, enormous consolidation was occurring among construction and engineering Žrms. European companies were acquiring construc- tion Žrms based in the United States, and European-based construction Žrms have been and continue to take a more active role in large construction projects in the United States. Similarly, large multinational corporations based in the United States, whether in the energy sector or the pharmaceutical sector, are contracting outside the United States more frequently with European owned contractors. As a result, European contracting principles are being pressed in a variety of contracting contexts, and it is not unusual for a European participant on a project to request application of, or incorporation of, the UPICC hardship principle as a response to escalation concerns. American lawyers, therefore, need to be able to respond to client inquiries about ap- proaches like those reected in the UPICC hardship principle. This article addresses legal issues associated with hyperina- tion and contrasts the traditional American approach with the approaches reected in the UPICC hardship principles and certain other European rules. The article begins with a look back at the impact of hyperination that has characterized the construction industry in recent years. That retrospective is important in evaluating how to deal with economic pressures in the future and provides the background for contrasting ap- proaches to dealing with such matters and the legal doctrines that might apply. The article next discusses the legal doctrines frequently used when a contractor seeks to avoid contractual obligations in the face of hyperination, including impossibility and impracticability of performance, frustration of purpose, the legal doctrine of mistake, and contractual force majeure clauses. Also discussed are three cases, decided recently, addressing at- tempts by contractors to avoid the contractual obligations in the context of the escalation in steel prices—cases that will be instructive to lawyers confronting similar circumstances. Next, is a brief discussion of contractual and other approaches to allocat- ing the risk of escalation, including force majeure clauses, the various types of price escalation clauses, and other strategies to managing the risk of escalation. Lastly, this article discusses the 37