Clause 1: general provisions under the 1999 Red Book
Clause 1 carries the definitions on which the remainder of the contract operates, together with the rules on interpretation, communications, law and language, priority of documents, assignment, care and supply of documents, confidentiality and compliance with laws. A definition misread at the outset of a claim carries through into every figure which is subsequently built upon it.
The navigator opens the clause across twenty three analyses covering its fourteen sub-clauses, from the definitions at Sub-Clause 1.1.1 through to joint and several liability at Sub-Clause 1.14, so that each defined term sits beside the operative provisions which depend upon it.
Each analysis sets out the elements of the provision, the outcome which it produces and the practical implications for a party working under it. The definition of the Parties illustrates why that matters: under this form the Engineer is not a Party to the Contract but is classified as the Employer's Personnel, and the navigator treats that classification as a point of high risk rather than as a matter of drafting formality.
Each of the twenty three analyses is banded as high, medium or low risk. The definitions of Cost and of Unforeseeable are placed in the highest band, as are the temporal definitions, the requirements governing communications, the priority of documents rule and the Contractor's notice of late information, these being the provisions which most often decide arguments that appear on their face to concern something else.
It is a reading resource for the 1999 Red Book which states the position under that edition alone and does not carry it across to the 2017 forms, whose wording differs in material respects.
Access to the navigator itself is available to Pro members of SCCSI.