Tender Contract Developments Give Hope to the Disgruntled

Professor Anthony Lavers

March 2010

A paper based on talks given to meetings of the Society of Construction Law in Bristol on 10th September and Cardiff on 1st December 2009.

Anthony Lavers looks at the tender contract in English law and its development over the last 20 years. He considers the contractual rights conferred on tenderers by Blackpool and Fylde Aero Club v Blackpool Borough Council (1990), before going on to examine the law in Canada and New Zealand and moving on to developments (both in other Commonwealth jurisdictions, Scotland and England) since the 1990s, including the Harman v Corporate Officer of the House of Commons case (1999). He concludes by looking at the present law, and the circumstances under which a tender contract will come into existence between the client/tendering authority and a tenderer who submits a valid tender.

Introduction - How it was - The Blackpool case and its aftermath - Commonwealth developments - Developments in the 1990s - Modern developments in public and private sectors - Limitations to the tender contract route for recovery - Conclusions.

The author: Anthony Lavers LLB, MPhil, PhD, DLitt, FRICS is a barrister and Counsel in the Construction & Engineering Group at the London office of White & Case LLP and is (part time) Director of Research and Professional Development at Keating Chambers. He is also a past chairman of the Society.

Text 18 pages.