Trust in three languages. With Emma Niemistö, Leonardo Toledo da Silva and Marijana Zvonar. Recorded in Dubrovnik on 9 October 2026, during the ICC Croatia conference, after a day in which the four of us had argued on stage about whether the contract model determines the dispute. This is not that debate. It is the question nobody had asked in three episodes of a podcast called Building with Trust: what does the word mean where you come from? Povjerenje, says Marijana Zvonar (civil engineer, Exstructa, Zagreb, born in Dubrovnik), has vjera inside it: faith. The verb means to entrust, to hand something of yours to someone else. Trust is given, not calculated. And in a country near the bottom of Europe on trust in institutions, people look for a person instead. Confiança, says Leonardo Toledo da Silva (Toledo Marchetti, São Paulo, professor at FGV, PhD on alliancing), comes from fiducia, faith again, and covers reliance, confidence and confiding in one word. Its slang cousin jeitinho, the little way around the rules, has a Croatian relative that Marijana supplies on the spot: we will find a solution, don't worry. Luottamus, says Emma Niemistö (Borenius, Helsinki, lawyer and construction engineer), is the simplest of the three. You earn it by performing as you promised, and Finnish contracts are read as written. Which leads to the cynic's question: if everyone performs as written, do you need trust at all? Then the cultures. Why a Brazilian finds it hard to say no, so a small problem stays hidden until it arrives in battle mode (and why there is a word, sincericida, for someone too honest). Why a Dubrovnik proverb tells you to be polite to everyone and honest with no one. Why Emma's worst cases are public employers who refuse to understand a risk that has actually happened. Two stories: a contractor who calls his engineer the moment he has a problem, because he knows she will not use it against him; and a contractor who lost an early contractor involvement contract because he would not show the kitchen of his restaurant. And the agreement nobody planned: trust is not in the contract and not in the culture. It is built inside every project, by the people on it, with the contract as scaffolding, and it has to be rebuilt when the going gets hard. The secret of dispute-free construction: Emma: "Building mutual alignment on the project-specific risks, and doing that early on." Marijana: "Trust the other parties, and address your problems as soon as you become aware of them." Leonardo: "It's hard. But contract governance, proper governance, very well established." Host: Arent van Wassenaer, founder of Vereniging Presolve and author of A Practical Guide to Successful Construction Projects; the write-up appears in the second edition (Routledge, 2027). Full disclosure: all three guests and the host co-wrote the paper "Does the Contract Model Determine the Dispute?" for the panel Arent moderated that morning. The paper is on presolve.info. Building with Trust is the international sister of Bouwen met Vertrouwen, the podcast of Vereniging Presolve, the Dutch expertise centre for dispute-free construction. Subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. #BuildingWithTrust #Trust #DisputeAvoidance #ConstructionLaw #ICCCroatia #Dubrovnik
