In October last year FIDIC published the First Edition of its new Conditions of Subcontract. It had previously released a Test Edition late in 2009 which was the subject of an extensive analysis in this Review by Emma Kratochvilova and Michael Mendelblat of Herbert Smith LLP.1 In the intervening period, FIDIC received comments on the Test Edition. We are very pleased that Emma Kratochvilova and Michael Mendelblat have agreed to bring readers up to date with the definitive version of the Subcontract in their paper “The FIDIC Subcontract, First Edition” (at page 104). Readers may need to have the previous article handy since the authors do not cover the whole ground again but instead deal with the changes since the Test Edition. In essence, they conclude that, although there have been improvements in favour of subcontractors, there remain provisions which subcontractors are likely to find commercially unacceptable, such as the pay-when-paid provisions and fitness for purpose obligations. They also express disappointment that some of the drafting issues to which they had drawn attention have not been dealt with satisfactorily, in particular, in relation to the indemnities in clause 17 and the dispute resolution provisions in clause 20. The latter in the various options available are likely to be unappealing to all except the determined. The multi-party dispute resolution schemes largely depend for their efficacy on the employer’s agreement but there is at present no provision in the Red Book for this to be given in advance. This omission should be repaired.