Category: Review

Review your contract: key aim

In most contracts, there is a balance to be struck between 3 key aims: time, cost and quality. It is impossible to have the best of all three. The British Library project is a great example of when the decision-makers chose quality as their priority, sometimes without thinking about the

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A slate engraved sign at a play park saying that if "offers great opportunities" and "the exposure to reasonable risk enables children to develop the skills they need throughout life" (a quote attributed to David Yearly of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents). Photo by Sarah Fox
Sarah Fox

Review your contract: risk

The final element in my STAR analysis is Risk. Risk v Reward When reviewing your contract, you need to strike a balance between risk and reward (harm v benefits). Risk is inextricably linked to price and cost. If your deal seems too good to be true, it often is! In

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What does warrant mean?

Warranty has a number of different usages in contracts and in normal talk: In this post, we consider the last of these usages. Warrants, acknowledges and undertakes In a collateral warranty relating to the construction of a leisure centre, clause 1 stated: ‘The Contractor warrants, acknowledges and undertakes that… it

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10 lessons from NEC3

In 2013 the University of Salford hosted an event (organised by the Constructing Excellence Manchester Best Practice Club) at which over 100 people heards about the Pitfalls of NEC3. What struck me was that many of the knotty problems associated with NEC3 apply to any form contract. What you should

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Ignorance is no defence

Your knowledge of the law is irrelevant to your liability. Given that you have to comply (whatever your contract or conscience says), why do most contracts require the parties to comply with statutory requirements? Clarity Although ‘ignorance is no defence’, contracts are tools to help the parties to understand their

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Do you read your contracts?

The first stage for reviewing a contract is to read it. Best practice, as set out in Which Contract? suggests that you ‘study its contents and understand its implications’. Some of you do not read your contracts: you let them gather dust. If you don’t read your contract, it goes

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Is NEC really unique in being simply drafted?

During the Annual NEC User Group conference, I had a lively twitter debate with Chris Hallam (@ChrisHallamLaw), a Partner at CMS, on the use of NEC3 (the New Engineering Contract, Engineering and Construction Contract, Third edition). From reading between the lines, I don’t think he’s convinced by NEC’s preference for

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Can you change a bonded contract?

Can you amend a bonded (or guaranteed) contract without the beneficiary losing its rights to claim under the associated bond? This was the decision of the Court of Appeal in Hackney Empire v Aviva which has received more coverage than most bond cases. Is it because the case decided a

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Review your bond: does it survive changes?

With any bond and all guarantees, it is imperative that the document continues to provide a form of surety throughout the life of a project. That means the document has to continue to bite even where there are changes to the project: whether that is changes to the scope, the

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Review your liability for breach

A few years ago, a developer (Gubbins) appointed an engineering firm (Grimes) for a housing development. Grimes agreed to design a road and the drainage, and obtain the relevant s38 agreement (for adoption of the road by the local authority). That work had to be completed by March 2007. It

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