Legislation regulates various issues related to the details of commercial, industrial and service businesses, and other basic matters that control the life of the community and the relations of its members and protect their interests, and there is no doubt that the UAE legislator is racing in this regard.
The legislator has gone in many texts to stress the need to adhere to the principle of conflict of interest and not to do any work that would affect this principle in prejudice to the rights of others, or exploiting it for personal interest, such as not combining a job position with a work related to it, for example, or combining Between two sites, one of them exercises a supervisory role over the other, including the impermissibility of the consulting engineer to be a contractor and vice versa, and this is a very important angle.
The law recognizes that the job of the contractor is different from the specialization of the consulting engineer, as the contractor undertakes the construction of buildings or fixed installations, while the consulting engineer designs the buildings and supervises their implementation, and they jointly compensate the employer for any damage that occurs within 10 years, whether it is wholly or partially in what Constructed from buildings or erected from facilities, and for every defect that threatens the durability and safety of the building if the contract does not include a longer warranty period. Or the two contracting parties agree to maintain these facilities for a period of less than 10 years.. (first paragraph of Article 880 of Law No. 5 of 1985 regarding civil transactions).
The judicial rulings stated that the consulting engineer appointed by the employer represents the latter in supervising the implementation of contracting works and in calculating the contractor’s entitlements, and the effects of his actions in this regard shall be added to the employer, and the consultant may ask the contractor to carry out additional works.
The certificate issued by the consultant regarding the contractor’s entitlement to a certain amount or the completion of the work assigned to him according to the terms and specifications without delay shall be included within the limits of his agency on behalf of the employer, in a manner that does not allow the latter to dispute or repudiate it, unless fraud or collusion occurred from the engineer.
The previous texts make it clear that it is not permissible to combine the functions of the consulting engineer and the contractor, as it is not logical for the contractor to supervise himself during the implementation of the contract, and he cannot act on behalf of the project owner as the consulting engineer.
Moreover, the legislator’s detailed joint responsibility for compensating the employer for the damage incurred in the building shows that combining the two sites is against the law, in light of the fact that the consulting engineer exercises a supervisory role over the contractor’s work, and any combination of the two sites will lead to a breach of the principle of conflict of interest, and it is natural That the contractor tends to give priority to his personal interest if he combines his job with the task of the consultant, at the expense of the business owner whose rights have been fortified by law by separating the two professions.. This is a very important legal information that everyone must know.
Arbitrator and legal advisor
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