Contract and Agreement Translation - Bilingual Contracts Where Both Parties Sign What They Read

Which contracts cross the language border

Almost every contract with a foreign party does. Sale and purchase agreements for property, vehicles, equipment and goods; lease agreements for apartments, offices, land and equipment; employment contracts for foreign staff in Georgia and Georgian staff abroad, which Georgian labor law and the work permit file require the employee to understand; supply and distribution agreements for Georgian wine, water and food abroad and foreign goods in Georgia; service and consultancy agreements; loan agreements, guarantees and security documents with foreign lenders; shareholders' agreements and joint venture agreements; franchise and licensing agreements; construction, EPC and FIDIC contracts on infrastructure and energy projects; agency and commission agreements; non-disclosure agreements; settlement agreements; and the marriage contracts and property agreements of international couples. Each is read by a different authority - a registry, a court, a labor inspector, a bank, a tender committee, a tax office - and each authority reads the version in its own language.

Which version prevails, and why the Georgian text matters

Georgian law permits contracts in any language, but the National Agency of Public Registry registers property and company transactions on Georgian-language documents, Georgian courts read Georgian, the labor inspectorate reads Georgian employment contracts, and Georgian notaries certify contracts in Georgian (with a translation attached where a party does not understand it). A contract drafted in English and translated into Georgian for registration or enforcement is therefore read, in Georgia, in its Georgian text, whatever the language clause says, and the same is true in reverse for a Georgian contract translated for a foreign registry or court. This is why we draft cross-border contracts bilingually where possible - the two texts in parallel columns, negotiated and signed together - and why, where a contract already exists in one language, we translate it with the care a court would apply: defined terms identical throughout, numbering and cross-references preserved, conditions, deadlines, amounts and penalties reproduced exactly, and the language clause itself translated so that both parties see which text prevails.

Legal-system gaps: flagged, not guessed

Contracts are written in the concepts of a legal system, and the other system may lack them. English contracts rely on consideration, warranties and representations, indemnities, best and reasonable endeavours, time being of the essence and the distinction between conditions and warranties; German contracts on the AGB rules, the Vertragsstrafe and the Sicherungsübereignung; Georgian contracts on the Civil Code's rules on penalties, earnest money, the notarial form for certain transactions and the specific regime of the labor code; and Turkish, Russian, Chinese, Persian and Arabic contracts on their own. A translator who renders "indemnify and hold harmless" with a single Georgian verb, or the Georgian earnest money ("be") as a deposit, has changed the contract. Our translators are lawyers who know both systems' concepts, render each term with the original in brackets where the equivalent is inexact, and add a translator's note where a provision needs a lawyer's decision on the other side rather than a translator's guess; we tell clients where a foreign clause will not work as intended under Georgian law, and where a Georgian clause will surprise a foreign counterparty.

Employment contracts, notarial contracts and registered contracts

Three kinds of contract have special requirements. Employment contracts for foreign staff in Georgia - Thai therapists, Indian and Filipino nurses, Uzbek and Turkmen workers, Chinese and Turkish technicians, relocated IT teams, foreign teachers and coaches - must comply with the Georgian Labor Code, are required in the work permit file and must be understood by the employee, so we draft them bilingually in Georgian and the employee's language and translate the staff rules, safety instructions and notices that follow. Contracts in notarial form - property sales, certain company transactions, marriage contracts, some guarantees - are certified by a Georgian notary in Georgian with our interpreter present for a party who does not speak Georgian, and we draft the bilingual text the notary certifies. Contracts registered at the Public Registry - property sales, leases over a certain term, pledges and mortgages - are registered on the Georgian text, and we deliver the Georgian version in the form the Registry accepts.

Construction, energy, finance and transaction files

Large contracts come in families, and consistency across the family matters as much as accuracy within a document. Construction and EPC contracts under FIDIC with their particular conditions, technical schedules, bills of quantities, guarantees, variation orders and claims; power purchase, concession and grid connection agreements with their tariff formulas and regulatory references; facility agreements with their security documents, conditions precedent and compliance certificates; and share purchase agreements with their disclosure letters, shareholders' agreements, escrow agreements and closing documents are translated by a team of legal and technical or financial specialists working from a single glossary agreed at the start, with translation memory enforcing consistency, a lead reviewer reading the whole file, and delivery on the transaction's timetable. Contracts in these families are handled under NDA with restricted access, and we sign client-specific NDAs and data processing agreements.

Pricing, timing and how to order

Contracts are priced per page at the legal tariff, with a modest supplement for rare languages; bilingual drafting per document or per page depending on complexity; notarization at the notary's tariff per act, with the interpreter's attendance where needed; the apostille at the state fee plus handling. A short contract is translated in one business day, a standard commercial contract in two to four, a transaction file on the transaction's timetable with a team. Certified translations for information purposes and notarized translations for registration and enforcement are both available.

To order, send the contract or the term sheet on WhatsApp, Telegram or email and tell us its purpose, the governing law and the authority that will read it; the quote arrives within the hour with any legal-system issue we see at first reading. Notarized versions and notarial contracts are signed and collected at Agmashenebeli 117, near Marjanishvili Metro; translations are delivered by email in the original format, with tracked changes for bilingual drafts under negotiation.

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