"Amending standard contracts: anarchy or common sense"

19 November 2008

David Bebb, in a paper given at the 5th Fenwick Elliott seminar, "Capital Projects in the Education Sector", discusses why parties often feel the need to make so many amendments to the standard forms of contract. Giving examples from the JCT and G/C works forms, David gives examples of amendments, discusses some of the "less clever" amendments and the law of unintended consequences and suggests ways in which the process of negotiating contracts could be made much slicker.