Weirdly, avoiding disputes does not seem to be a key factor driving the drafting of contracts (although PPC2000 might be an exception). However, given the rising cost and time involved in resolving disputes, as well as the damage to reputations and the sustainability of a company, it should be. My
Showstoppers are A clause or term that could bring negotiations or your contract to a juddering halt Over the past 9 months, my newsletters have proposed a series of tips, tools and techniques to spot and solve showstoppers. What should you do? Do you work with or for your clients?
Do you believe that if you insure your liabilities, the level of your insurance cover acts as a limit on your liability? It doesn’t. This is the most common misconception among business owners when I am delivering workshops on contracts. My objective is to help both sides protect their interests
What should be the contractor’s remedy when a subcontractor is running late? Under freedom to contract, the parties can decide their rights, remedies, obligations and liabilities – they are masters of their contractual fate. The choice is between recovering an uncertain amount provided you can prove breach and loss in
What is the long-term impact of transferring all the risk on a construction project to the contractor? In April 2016, defects found in 17 schools in Edinburgh resulted in those schools being closed to pupils. Like design and build, construction management and other procurement strategies, the Private Finance Initiative schemes
When writing your contract, you may be tempted to see it as a form of safety-net. Rights and remedies… This means your contract will inevitably focus on what will happen when things go wrong. Is this really a good start to a client relationship? How do you think it makes
One of the hardest items in a contract to draft effectively is any limit on your liability. Some of the reasons are: they get a lot of focus in the courts who interpret them strictly i.e. the court will only allow you to rely on a limit if it is
You can use your contract to describe what you want to happen if something happens which is outside the original contract: you can include delay damages if the provider is late you can include a mechanism to change the scope if the client changes her mind you can include a
When writing your contract, you should create clauses which are certain. It is one of the five essential elements for a binding contract (see What You Need). The courts will not enforce a clause or term if they cannot be sure what it means. Limiting Your Liability In Trebor v
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