Legal implications of adopting Building Information Modeling (BIM)

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is an innovative approach to design and construct buildings, which has changed the practices within the construction industry. Different categories of stakeholders, such as architects, construction companies, professional associations, academia and even the policymakers, who have defined national policies and strategy documents to facilitate the BIM adoption, have been interested to understand BIM and its implications for the business environment. The legal implications of adopting BIM in construction projects represent one of the most recently discussed issues, which is still not fully understood and not followed by concrete risk mitigation actions. The paper intends to underline some of the legal implications of adopting BIM, mainly in relation to the procurement and contract strategies. The paper concludes that it is expected that BIM will bring more transparency in the construction project implementation and will enable a more comprehensive audit trail leading to fewer legal disputes.