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Training Course Summary:

The law and regulations governing business and contract law are increasingly complex and now affect all industries and every type of commercial agreement; from entering into a contract, to validity of purchase conditions. If you are involved in commercial contracting or dealing with external parties at any level, you need to grasp the practical legal implications of these relationships to ensure you do not expose your organisation to unnecessary risk.

Additionally you need to protect your company from litigation and anticipate legal pitfalls.

This programme combines up-to-date commercial law with practical methods of translating this law into documentation. It identifies and analyses the different types of contract and how they are affected by the various statutes, ensuring that you fully grasp the impact of current legislation and case law.

This seminar is designed to offer a comprehensive and practical introduction to business contract law for non-lawyers. After two days, attendees will have gained the necessary knowledge to enable them to recognise and deal confidently with the risks and benefits of commercial contracts.

The programme also includes two hands-on drafting exercises when participants will have an opportunity to practice their newly acquired drafting skills together with a workshop session on boilerplate clauses.

Why you should attend?
By attending this seminar, you will:

Gain practical experience of effective contract negotiation
Grasp the main issues impacting the early phase of offer and acceptance
Learn how to create a formal contract
Understand the legal background to common contract terms
Identify and understand the role of payment and performance obligations
Discover how to limit risk and identify the areas of potential claims
Examine ways to skilfully avoid disputes
Determine how to deal with and make defences to breach of contract
Get-to-grips with EU competition law and its impact on business contracts
Study some typical business agreements

Who Should Attend:

Contract managers and engineers
Commercial managers
Sales and marketing managers
Project managers
And all those involved in the negotiation, drafting and management of commercial business contracts

Training Course Overview/Content:

Effective contract negotiation

Preparing for negotiation
Developing winning strategies
Understanding the rules negotiation and culture
Improving your communication skills
Mapping routes to agreement
Offer and acceptance

Defining the number of offers that can be on the table at any time
Understanding what is a counter offer
Examining what constitutes acceptance
Tools, techniques and terminology when creating a formal contract

Informal contracts
Standard terms
Letters of intent
Memorandum of Understanding
Enforceable contracts
Getting to grips with how the law changes what you thought you had agreed to

What are implied terms and where do you use them
Working within government restrictions
What is good faith and making it benefit your organisation
Misrepresentation
International convention
Understanding and effective drafting payment obligations

Advance/stage payments
Retention monies
The role of bonds
Credit insurance
Letters of credit
Including constructive performance obligations

Specific performance
Condition precedents
Delivery
Force majeure
The Doctrine of Frustration
Implications of law and regulations for international agreements

Incoterms
Personnel
Price and payment terms
Disputes
Exporting
When things go wrong - Limit contractual risk for your organisation

Identifying the areas of potential claims
Examining claims in contract
Examining claims in tort
What are the claims under other headings
Insurance
PRACTICAL DRAFTING EXERCISE

In this session participants will draft contract terms based on the skills and knowledge developed during the day under the guidance of experts

Day two
Making defences to breach of contract

Misrepresentation
Duress
Mistake
Negligent misstatement
Termination - Understanding how and when contracts end

Duration
Liquidation
Change of control
Successfully resolving contractual disputes

Drafting key provisions to minimise the risk of disputes
ADR clauses
Arbitration - institutional or ad hoc
The impact of EU competition law

What the rules say
Prohibited agreements
Areas to watch - pricing; quantity restriction
Market sharing; public procurement rules; joint buying & selling
When the rules apply - De Minimis
Horizontal and vertical agreements
The role of the Block Exemptions
PRACTICAL DRAFTING EXERCISE

In this session participants will practice drafting contract terms and practical receive advise and guidance of how they can develop in this area.

Some typical agreements

This session will review the terms and conditions of some typical agreements to illustrate how to avoid the legal pitfalls and challenges faced

Service
Supply
Manufacture
Licensing
PRACTICAL WORKSHOP: Drafting and understanding boilerplate clauses

General provisions
Confidentiality
Costs
Assignment
Notices
Law of the contract
Programme presenters