How does the Standards Australia construction contract suite stack up against the NEC4 suite?
Standards Australia is currently preparing a long-awaited update to AS4000 – its General Conditions of Contract for a construction contract without design obligations (commonly called a ‘construct only contract’).
It’s long-awaited because AS4000 was published in 1997. Much has changed in Australian construction contracting in the intervening 25 years.
Most significantly, for Standards Australia, other commercial providers of construction contracts have entered the Australian market, and numerous government agencies have developed their own suites of construction contracts – partly in response to the void created by the failure of Standards Australia to keep its suite up-to-date.
There is much debate as to which suite of contracts is the best available in the market today. Views differ, across a range of relevant considerations, such as functionality, risk allocation, ease of use, and cost.
In terms of functionality, i.e the ability of the suite to accommodate the full variety of contract delivery models in common use, and the common additional issues that a party may wish to address (such as limitation of liability), the NEC4 suite is clearly one of the best available. The table at the link below compares the functionality of AS4000 relative to the ECC contract within the NEC4 suite, and the companion documents available in each suite.
If Australian Standards wants to arrest its declining market share, it should update AS4000 and the other contracts in its suite to provide equivalent or better functionality than NEC4.
