If a tenderer submits a schedule of quantities and
prices (ie. a tender) but notices an error in a unit price prior to award, is
he allowed to 'correct' the error?
The Owner owns the risk to start.
Transferring it to the Contractor means the Owner pays a risk premium which may
be more expensive than carrying the risk over the long term. When the
Contractor knows if the risk is limited, the risk allowance can be reduced.
The contractor then relies on the contract wording to ensure fair payment when
the risk situation arises. In many cases the MMCD language works both ways
to limit risk to both Owner and Contractor. The situation of quantity
over/under runs is a good example.
There are two ways to get a Referee. First,
and most preferable, the two parties can exchange names and agree on a person
whose opinion will be valued by both. In this case, the parties negotiate
the Referee's fees with the selected candidate. If the parties cannot
agree, they can apply to the MMCD Association who will then appoint a Referee.
Appointed Referees are required to charge out at a standard rate set from time
to time by the Association. You can get suggestions for Referee names from
the Association, but as the Association has a very limited number of
Referees, you will have to declare that you accept the risk that if you
later have a Referee appointed you may get a Referee which one party of the
other has already declined.
Not quite. The MMCD Association chose the
term Contract Administrator for several reasons. In non-MMCD contracts,
the Engineer often has decision making powers on claims and disputes. In
the MMCD, the Contract Administrator makes the initial decisions, but if a
claim or dispute arises, the Contract Administrator only provides information
to others - he or she does not make the final ruling. In addition, since
the MMCD was designed for municipal works, we wanted to be sure there was no
confusion between "The Engineer" on the job and the "Municipal
Engineer". Finally, by changing the name, the MMCD was signalling
that the role was different from past practise - requiring more cooperation
and teamwork.
This topic has been discussed many times and a
lump sum contract may one day be developed. However, the principle of a
Lump Sum contract is to transfer all risk to the Contractor. This was
deemed not to be a particularly appropriate type of contract for municipal
infrastructure work. Often when people ask for a Lump Sum contract, a simplified
contract is an acceptable substitute. The MMCD Association have as an
upcoming project a simplified contract for small works.
In the spirit of fairness, the MMCD makes that
difference so that a new item which was not contemplated by either the Owner
or Contractor can be dealt with flexibly. In the case of an Extra, the
Owner does not have to offer the work to the Contractor and if offered, the
Contractor does not have to do the work. New items which are not Extra
Work are those which are similar to bid items and occur generally within the
work site. These become Changes and if the Owner wants them done, they
must be awarded to the Contractor and then the Contractor has no choice but to
do the Change. Although they both require a Change Order to initiate the
work, this simply means that only one type of form is needed to amend the
contract.
GC 11 deals with Concealed or Unknown Conditions
and GC 12 deals with Hazardous Materials. The major difference is that
under GC 11, dealing with the condition may be a Change or an Extra Work item
depending on the nature of the condition. Under GC 12, dealing with
Hazardous Materials is defined as an Extra so that both the Owner and the
Contractor have choices about who deals with the hazardous material.
All liens must be filed within
45 days and payment released by the 55.
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This supplementary removes
sub-contractors from the insurance coverage. The use of “wrap-up” insurance not
required.
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The maintenance period is one
year in the gold book (GC25.1.1) which was unchanged from the red book version.
This can be varies with a supplementary but expect increased tender prices to
cover.
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We are often asked how we
arrived at +/- 15 % for this index. (GC 9.4.1) It was as a result of
consultation with many agencies and we chose 15% as an average. This can easily
be varied with a supplementary but it may result in increased costs.
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In our travels we are
constantly questioned about how to ensure the delivery of accurate and timely
as-built information. Some clients hold-back $2000 per page for this purpose .
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If a tenderer submits a schedule of quantities and
prices (i.e. a tender) but notices an error in a unit price prior to award, is
he allowed to 'correct' the error?
Absolutely Not. Failure to accept
award usually leads to a call on the Bid Bond. This was the essence of
the Ron Engineering case at the Supreme Court of Canada wherein they defined
"Contract A" and "Contract B". The tenderer will just have to "suck it
up".
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