Does signing a contract as a deed under UK law constitute a form of “acceptance” of a tender submission programme? Can a Contractor claim the baseline programme is the tender submission (Cl.31), and signing of the deed meant this was accepted by the PM by default? Whist the PM has not expressly “accepted” a programme, there is an reasonable assumption that they should not have signed the contract if there were known errors, or should not have named a programme in the Contract Data.
Assuming the tender submission programme contained errors, once in contract the PM could reference Cl.14.1 - noting that a programme accepted with errors does not change the Contractors obligations to provide the Works. The PM should then request a revision of the tender programme be submitted and list the errors to be resolved, becoming the first Cl32. Tender submission programmes are often not fully compliant with the requirements of Cl31.
I’m a bit split on this as I have seen both sides argued - 1 The programme is not accepted by the PM, as the contract has not started - 2. By signing a contract you are in effect agreeing to the content and conditions of the contract, and hence the named programme it contains (Cl.12.4 -“This Contract is the entire agreement between the Parties”).
If the contract signing is not a form of acceptance then the Contractor forfeits his right to several Compensation Events until the first Cl32 is accepted i.e Cl60.1.(2 ,3,5) all reference the “Accepted” programme.