분리도급 건축주의 조정의무

Abstract

On April 29 2020, a fire broke out at a construction site of a logistics center in Icheon, Gyeonggi-do, and unfortunately, as many as 38 people were killed and 10 were injured. The fire report, released to the press a few days later, showed that the cause was the simultaneous dilution of urethane foam and the installation of elevators and ducts, which another builder should not have done together. If the owner separately orders a project to different contractors but fails to coordinate among them, the construction might not smoothly proceed to cause delay, costs and defects, or even to frustrate completion; eventually, (sub-)contractors and their workers could unfortunately suffer life, body, and material damage. Separated contracting has been mentioned so far only as a contract form in contrast to comprehensive(including turnkey) contracting. However, there are few studies on what the legal differences between the two forms of contracting. Among the legal issues unique to separate contracts, the most crucial problem is maybe who is to coordinate works carried out by various contractors. In this article, this problem will be scrutinized with help of comparative analysis of the three countries (Germany, Switzerland, and Austria) representing the (European) continental legal system. These three countries are common in that the owner bears the duty of coordination. In particular, an Austrian act (Bauarbeitenkoordinationsgesetz), enacted in 1999, stipulates the obligation of the owner to coordinate(art. 3, par. 1). On the other hand, Germany and Switzerland have related regulations in their standard contract forms for construction work. Here, the usage of terms is first summarized (II), followed by examination of the contents of foreign reference laws and standard contract forms(III). Based on the discussions of these countries, one after another mentioned are the constructive elements of a separatedly ordered contract(Ⅳ) and the concrete scope of coordination. In Korea, the Act on the Punishment of Severe Disasters was recently entered into force in order to cope with worker’s compensation but it has congenital limits owing to its penal nature. As a conclusion, this study suggests ①that in standard construction contract forms, currently not in any act, ②the principle of owner’s liability for coordination should be declared and ③that necessary implementation measures should be stipulated there in detail for various steps of construction process.