Awareness-Based Claim Notification under FIDIC and Turkish Public Procurement Framework

The determination of the awareness date for notice is important for claim submission in construction contracts. This research examines the notice mechanisms under the FIDIC Red Book 1999 and 2017 and compares them with the Public Procurement Contracts Law (KİSK), focusing specifically on the interpretation of the phrase “became aware or should have become aware.” Under FIDIC contracts, the Contractor may be required to act not only on actual knowledge but also on knowledge it should reasonably have acquired of the relevant event or circumstance. The Turkish public procurement framework does not contain a general awareness-based time-bar mechanism comparable to FIDIC. However, specific notice requirements exist, notably under Article 29 of the General Conditions of Contract for Construction Works (“YİGŞ”) for extension-of-time requests, subject to exceptions such as delays caused by the administration. Article 473 of the Turkish Code of Obligations uses the expression ‘according to all estimations’ (‘bütün tahminlere göre’) when allowing the employer to withdraw before the delivery date if it clearly becomes evident that the work will not be completed on time; it does not create an awareness-based notice trigger. The comparative analysis demonstrates that this difference between FIDIC and KİSK leads to divergent approaches in determining the correct notice date, claim submissions, and dispute resolution. The research aims to clarify how awareness should be assessed in practice and to evaluate whether the absence of such a concept in KİSK creates legal uncertainty when compared with the FIDIC framework.