The purpose of Professor Kohl’s paper is to examine the possible implications for the construction industry of rationalisation of a sales law which might not, on the face of it, have direct application to construction. However, as he points out “construction law… is at the crossroads of different issues…” Since construction is destined to form part of immovable or real property, the impact of proposals for sales may have an effect on construction. Professor Kohl observes that the sale of building materials is included within the scope of this proposed Regulation. Furthermore, Part 5 of Annex I of the Proposal deals with the rights and obligations of the parties to a contract for “related services” which might then become directly applicable to contracts dealing with the installation of goods in an existing building. The paper, therefore, argues cogently for an exclusion from the scope of the Proposal for such contracts and, in its place, for the creation of coherent regulation in the law of property contracts which might take the form, first, of a “toolbox” for legislators (which had been recommended in the Green Paper of July 2010) and, possibly ultimately, the evolution of shared principles or a code applicable across Europe.

Our second contribution is by Mr Shaun Crawley of Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. It is entitled “Islamic Jurisprudence: Can FIDIC Prevent Gharar Infecting a Contract?” (at page 273). As defined by Mr Crawley, gharar is where one party to the contract might acquire a benefit from the other without payment or by not paying the true counter-value for such a benefit. This would then nullify its effect. Mr Crawley considers the argument that the established mechanisms under a FIDIC contract for variations and for the measurement of work might not provide proper counter-value and, therefore, might not be validly used to obtain an extension of time. He suggests that provisions such as Law No 5 of the United Arab Emirates (the Civil Transaction Code), in permitting in Article 206 parties to attach their own stipulations to a contract, ought to allow the ascendancy of conditions such as the FIDIC Conditions over any difficulties created by gharar. If gharar was encountered there would be a mechanism for dealing with it.

At page 293, Dr Franco Mastrandrea writes on “The Impact of Currency Exchange Fluctuations on Construction Claims”, a perennially important subject. He looks at the subject in various ways starting with the common situations where there are claims for losses suffered in a currency different