Analysis of Procurement and Contract Law in Kangaroo Island Project

This report provides a legal analysis of a procurement and contract management case involving the Kangaroo Island Council and several contractors: Boots Project Australia, Rexell, and Westside. The analysis addresses whether valid contracts existed and if any breaches occurred, particularly focusing on the tender process, contract formation, and potential liabilities. The report examines the council's obligations, the contractors' rights, and the legal implications of actions taken during the project. It considers the importance of cost, time, and adherence to procurement rules. The report also provides legal advice to each of the contractors, based on the facts and applicable case laws, assessing their potential for legal action and compensation. The report references relevant journal articles and case laws to support its arguments and conclusions.

Procurement and contract management
Student Name
Institution

Question 1
Advise to Boots Project Australia.
In this regard, a determination has to be made as to whether there exists a valid contract between
Kangaroo Island Council and Boots Project Australia, and if so, is there any term of the contract
that has been breached by the council of Kangaroo Island to warrant Boots Project take legal
action.
Following the facts presented in the situation, boots project cannot take legal action against
Kangaroo Island since in a tender awarding process the entity seeking to procure services is at
liberty to settle on any tender which it believes will meet the standards set out in the tender
invitation offer, (Tang, Ng and Skitmore 2019). Therefore in this instance, Kangaroo Council did
not commit any wrong by not awarding the Boots project the tender since e from its invitation
offer it set out the minimum requirements that the company applying for the tender ought to meet
and since it was satisified by the tender submitted by UniSA it is not at any blame as the concept
of free seller free buyer is of essence in the situation.
Further, regarding cost, which played a major role in the awarding of the tender, is of essence
since procurement rules requires that an entity procuring either goods of services should be cost
effect whereby it should consider a company with the best cost and that which can provide
quality services at the lowest possible cost to ensure maximization of the resources,
(Abolbashari, Zakeri and Chang 2018). Therefore, the process of procurement which is normally
done through invitation of tenders constitutes a form of contract since it satisfies the
requirements of a valid contract.

This is so since the initial stage involves the procuring entity inviting individuals to apply for the
tender by making an offer as done by Kangaroo Island on SA Tenders and Contract Website. In
doing so, any tenderer considering the offer applies for it as a form of acceptance. Upon
acceptance the party might consider to make a counter offer as done by Rexell in regards to
tender for the new terminal Information Technology infrastructure, (Vyas, Hayllar and Wu
2018). Finally, if the parties agree to the terms and conditions of the contract they sign the
contract to make it valid, as done in the case of kangaroo island council and UniSA Project R Us.
Further, in regards to cost spend in preparing the tender, Boots cannot be compensated since in
tendering it is always up to the company applying for the tender to give its best in convincing the
other as to why its services should be sought against those of others and therefore one can only
be liable if he has breached the contract which in this instance there is no contract and therefore
Boots cannot seek any legal action against the council.
Question 2
Advice to Rexell
Rexell does not have a binding agreement towards the delivery of services in regards to
information technology project work. This is so since despite the fact that UniSA showed an
interest in hiring Rexell and even promised to hold on to the deal for about a week, the council in
its tender had expressed time being of essence and therefore there was need to ensure that is
secures a contract in time so as to be able to complete the project. In this instance the
communication as to the acceptance of the contract by rexell did not reach UniSA on time since
it is the same day that it accepted a contract from Boots IT Brothers, (Lonsdale et al. 2016).

Therefore, in this instance, the procuring entity is kangaroo island council which has been funded
by the state and commonwealth government to ensure that the Kangaroo Island Airport upgrade
project is implemented using the $ 18M provided, (Ahmadi, Pishvaee and Torabi 2018).
In addition, despite there not being a binding agreement the undertaking by UniSA for accepting
to keep the deal open requires them to compensate rexell the extra cost used to hire and terminate
the workers since it acted based on the promise given by UniSA and therefore it can sue for
breach of the undertaking, as the case of Obergell v. Hodges.
Question 3
Advice to Westside
In this instance Westside was hired as a contractor based on the terms of the contract. In the
process of completion of a contract, there are instances where one party makes a professional
undertaking as to the performance of the contract. Under common law such undertakings are
considered to be binding since it’s basically a promise to ensure performance of a promise which
upon failure the other party can sue for breach. This was established in the case of Equity
Agencies Ltd v Credit Bank Ltd. In addition to this, procurement is done in a systematic way as
it is provided for in the relevant legislation. In addition, the 2002 Construction Contracts Act
considers the procurement process to be a contract considering the requirements it has to satisfy
before the intended work or good is secured.
Therefore in this instance, the council is liable to ensure the undertaking in regards to the
payment of the money alleged is paid since Westside clearly stated its position in regards to
completion of the contract and only went ahead to hire the extra workers for completion of work
in the required time since the council had made an undertaking that it will cater for the stipulated

cost and therefore Westside can sue for breach and demand for specific performance, (Hackett
and Statham 2016).

References
Journal Articles
Abolbashari, M.H., Zakeri, A. and Chang, E., 2018. Using System Dynamics for Predicting an
Organization’s Procurement Performance. In International Conference on Intelligent
Information Processing (pp. 294-299).
Ahmadi, A., Pishvaee, M.S. and Torabi, S.A., 2018. Procurement Management in Healthcare
Systems. In Operations Research Applications in Health Care Management (pp. 569-598).
Hackett, M. and Statham, G., 2016. The aqua group guide to procurement, tendering and
contract administration. John Wiley & Sons.
Lonsdale, C., Sanderson, J., Watson, G. and Peng, F., 2016. Beyond intentional trust: supplier
opportunism and management control mechanisms in public sector procurement and
contracting. Policy & Politics, 44(2), pp.289-311.
Tang, Z.W., Ng, S.T. and Skitmore, M., 2019. Influence of procurement systems to the success
of sustainable buildings. Journal of Cleaner Production.
Vyas, L., Hayllar, M. and Wu, Y., 2018. Bridging the gap-contractor and bureaucrat conceptions
of contract Management in Outsourcing. Public Organization Review, 18(4), pp.413-439.
Case Laws
Equity Agencies Ltd v Credit Bank Ltd, No. 17-CV-1348 (DRH)(GRB) (E.D.N.Y. Dec. 21,
2017).
Obergell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 1039, 576 U.S., 190 L. Ed. 2d 908 (2015).