Standard form contracts

Arbitration Clause - This is likely to be mentioned in most standard forms of contract, and if repeated here, should be verbatim. 

Most standard forms of contract contain specific procedures for determination, and these should be rigidly adhered to. For example, the contract document may lay down that the contractor be given 14 days notice in writing to rectify his progress before determination is carried out. Any letters should be sent by recorded delivery or served by hand. While liquidated or non-liquidated damages can be claimed with respect to late or incomplete work, expense claims usually follow the events shown below, which are also mentioned in Section 8.24 ... 

Standard forms of contract have particular formats, but the points which should be noted are ... 

The standard forms of contract invariably contain agreements to arbitrate in the event of a dispute and some even name the arbitrator or a professional body who will appoint an arbitrator, upon the application of one of the parties. Where no agreement to arbitrate exists, the injured party may sue in either a County Court or High Court, depending upon the value of the claim, and he must then prove his case before a judge. 

One must view so-called traditional business—the delivery of semifinished and finished products—as being increasingly supplemented by the sales of large capital equipment and whole plants. Whereas the former has usually been carried out through standard-form contracts of the respective foreign trade corporations, the latter transactions are negotiated in detail. 

Other contract types such as clinical study agreements, distribution agreements and supply agreements each have their own standard forms. 

There is no prescribed or recommended format for clinical research contracts. Indeed, in some situations it may be inappropriate to use standard-form documents. A standard form must always be adapted to fit the particular study. However, the follo wing is a non-exhaustive checklist of points that might be considered for inclusion in a contract ... 

Different from the contracted Gaussian-type basis functions mentioned later, primitive functions usually have a standardized form to save the effort of developing a different computational program for each basis function. The primitive functions corresponding to s, p, d, and f atomic orbitals are represented analogically to the... 

A contract is a formal document which sets out the terns of agreement between the two parties. A standard form of building contract typically contains four sections ... 

A time sheet is a standard form completed by each employee to inform the employer of the actual time spent working on a particular contract or site. This helps the employer to bill the hours of work to an individual job. It is usually a weekly document and includes the number of hours worked, the name of the job and any travelling expenses claimed. Office personnel require time sheets such as that shown in Fig 5.11 so that wages can be made up. 

A time sheet is a standard form completed by each employee to inform the employer of the actual time spent working on a particular contract or site. 

Business thrives on precision. We expect our contracts to be accurate and subject to a single interpretation and we employ expensive specialists to ensure that this is so. We even use standardized forms of formal address in our correspondence Dear Sir, yours faithfully defines a form of interface and it is perhaps in component interfaces that formality has most to offer most quickly as we move towards the construction of systems from off-the-shelf components. 

Producing a good contract costs a lot of money good commercial lawyers are not cheap. For this reason, software suppliers try to use what are known as standard form contracts, which are used or intended to be used many times over. Such a contract might consist of ... 

It was stated at the start of this chapter that a software house will often try to use a standard form contract in its dealings with its commissioning clients. Section 3 of the Unfair Contract Terms Act contains special provisions for standard form contracts. In the present context it provides that a software house using a standard form contract carmot, again unless it is reasonable to do so,... 

If a standard form contract limits habihty in damages to a fixed or determinable sum. 

Standard form contracts do therefore have their drawbacks. Unfortunately the Act gives no guidance about when a contract, which is used several times, becomes standard form . It is, however, at least arguable that standard terms offered by one parly to another for purchases over the Internet are standard form. ... 

Chromatographic peak areas are calculated automatically by the data system by reference to the response obtained from certain specified, compound-dependent ions. From the peak areas of the target compounds, quantification is achieved by comparison with the internal standards, which are present in known concentration. The laboratory responsible for the analysis must report the target compounds and all tentatively identified (nontarget) compounds. Standard EPA forms must be completed and submitted. A laboratory is said to be in compliance when it has satisfied all aspects of its CLP contract. 

In the Intoduction to ISO 9001 it states that the quality assurance models represent three distinct forms of quality system suitable for the purpose of a supplier demonstrating its capability and for the assessment of such capability by external parties. In other words, the standard is suitable for contractual as well as for assessment purposes, but it does not actually require demonstration of capability to the assessor or purchaser unless required by the contract. 

Quality plans are needed when the work you intend to carry out requires detailed planning beyond that already planned for by the quality system. The system will not specify everything you need to do for every job. It will usually specify only general provisions which apply in the majority of situations. You will need to define the specific documentation to be produced, tests, inspections, and reviews to be performed, and resources to be employed. The contract may specify particular standards or requirements that you must meet and these may require additional provisions to those in the quality system. Although ISO/TS 16949 requires the plan to include customers requirements, the intention is not that these requirements are reproduced if provided in a documented form by the customer, but that a cross reference is made in the plan together with any other relevant specifications referred to in the contract. However, when constructing the plan, it would make sense to refer to specific customer requirements and provide a response that indicates your intentions regarding those requirements. 

The document availability requirement applies to both internal and external documents alike. Customer documents such as contracts, drawings, specifications, and standards need to be available to those who need them to execute their responsibilities. Often these documents are only held in paper form and therefore distribution lists will be needed to control their location. If documents in the public domain are required, they only need be available when required for use and need not be available from the moment they are specified in a specification or procedure. You should only have to produce such documents when they are needed for the work being undertaken at the time of the audit. However, you would need to demonstrate that you could obtain timely access when needed. If you provide a lending service to users of copyrighted documents, you would need a register indicating to whom they were loaned so that you can retrieve them when needed by others. 

Customer engineering standards and specifications are external documents. Therefore your procedure for controlling external documents should also cover these documents. Where ISO/TS 16949 differs from ISO 9001 on this topic is that ISO 9001 does not require external documents to be reviewed or implemented. However, any external document received or procured for the organization should be reviewed for its applicability before it is brought under control, otherwise resources could be wasted on controlling documents that have no practical use in the organization. This requirement could be placed under Contract rev/ew since any documents issued by customers form part of the contract and should go through contract review before acceptance and implementation. 

The subcontractor records that are delivered to you should form part of your records. However, the controls you can exercise over your subcontractor s quality records are somewhat limited. You have a right to the records you have paid for but no more unless you invoke the requirements of this clause of the standard in your subcontract. Your rights will probably only extend to your subcontractor s records being made available for your inspection on their premises therefore you will not be able to take away copies. It is also likely that any subcontractor records you do receive are copies and not originals. Before placing the contract you will need to assess what records you will require to be delivered and what records the contractor should produce and retain. 

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