Originally from The Law and Practice of International Arbitration: Essays in Honor of John Fellas – Preview Page

1. INTRODUCTION   

The conventional wisdom holds that proving culpa grave in Chilean and Colombian construction disputes presents overwhelming evidentiary obstacles. It is not rare for practitioners to counsel clients that gross fault claims face virtually impossible proof burdens, particularly in complex EPC contexts. 

This perception seems to persist despite mounting contradictory evidence. Recent international arbitration awards, and national tribunals, demonstrate increasing willingness to find gross fault through sophisticated evidentiary analysis. They employ circumstantial evidence, inferences (indicios or presunciones judiciales), expert testimony, and systematic evaluation methods with greater frequency and effectiveness than previously recognized. 

The stakes in this analysis are not merely academic. Construction contracts routinely contain liability limitations that carve out gross fault from their protective scope. The distinction between ordinary fault (culpa leve) and gross fault determines whether contractors face modest damages or unlimited exposure. Understanding how tribunals approach these determinations becomes essential for effective advocacy. 

Recent megaproject arbitrations illustrate what that means in practice. In Pacific Hydro v. Astaldi (ICC, Santiago seat, 2022) a majority of the tribunal voided a loss of profits limitation provision after finding gross fault in the collapse of a 75-year-design-life spillway, on the fifth year of commercial operation. In Reficar v. CB&I (ICC, NYC seat, 2023) the tribunal relied on cost-overrun magnitude, budget forecasts, internal emails, and expert red-flags to hold the contractor grossly negligent under Colombian law, giving rise to a billion-dollar award.