Statutory paid holiday entitlement For information on the statutory right to paid holiday generally, see Practice Notes: Holiday and Holiday pay. Under the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR 1998), SI 1998/1833, a worker is entitled to a total of 5.6 weeks paid annual leave each leave year, made up of: • a basic entitlement of four weeks’ annual leave, implementing the right under Directive 2003/88/EC, the Working Time Directive (WTD) • an additional entitlement of 1.6 weeks’ annual leave, which is a right under domestic legislation only A worker is entitled to be paid a week’s pay for each week of holiday, calculated

For the purposes of this Q&A, we have assumed that the new lessee has not had sight of the original lease agreement. Formation of contract Four essential elements must be present for a contract to be effective. These are: • offer • acceptance • consideration, and • the intention to create legal relations Terms of a contract Contracts that do not have clear, comprehensive or unambiguous terms may fail for lack of certainty. Terms such as price or rental price may often fall into this type of category. The courts will, in some cases, infer terms but each case is judged on its own merits. Terms can be express or implied and are further classified as: • conditions—breach of which entitles the innocent party to terminate the contract and claim damages; alternatively, the innocent party may choose to affirm the

This Practice Note is for use when determining applicable law where the contract was entered into on or after 1 January 2021. For contracts entered into before 1 January 2021, a different applicable law regime will be applied by the UK courts. Which regime is applied will depend on the date on which the contract was entered into. For guidance on the different regimes and their interrelationship, see Practice Note: Applicable law regimes. This Practice Note refers to UK Rome I, Regulation (EC) 593/2008. This regulation is applied when determining the applicable law in cases in which the contract was entered into on or after 1 January 2021. Originally known as Retained Rome I, since 1 January 2024 it is known as Assimilated Rome I—the change is to the name only and not the provisions within the regulation. Authorities may refer to the regulation using either name and so, for ease of reference, the regulation is referred to as UK Rome I in this Practice Note. For information on assimilated law,

Comparison with traditional building or engineering contract The label 'EPC' contract (or 'turnkey' contract) is not a term of art. It is easier perhaps to start by identifying differences to other forms. The concept of the turnkey contract is a contract under which, once the project is complete and ready to be handed over to the user, it will require only the 'turn of a key' for the user to operate it. EPC stands for engineering, procurement and construction, clearly indicating: • a high level of risk allocation and responsibility imposed on the contractor under such contracts, and • a limited requirement for the client to be involved in the Works (other than essential monitoring) This can be contrasted with traditional domestic building or engineering contracts whereby the risks and responsibilities (including in respect of design) are more evenly divided between the contractor and client, and the client through its representatives may have considerable involvement in decision making throughout the construction period. Many UK domestic contracts now use standard forms with contractor design liability

ARCHIVED: This Practice Note has been archived and is not maintained. This practical guidance relates to the pre-Procurement Act 2023 regime This Practice Note contains guidance relevant to public procurement exercises commenced before the Procurement Act 2023 (PA 2023) came into force on 24 February 2025. In-scope procurements begun on or after this date are governed by PA 2023. Under the transitional and savings provisions for PA 2023, the previous public procurement regimes continue to apply to the extent necessary to allow contracting authorities to complete and manage procurements commenced before PA 2023 came into force. This Practice Note should be read in that context. For background reading, see Practice Note: Introduction to the Procurement Act 2023—PA 2023. Further practical guidance on PA 2023 is set out in a separate subtopic, see: Procurement Act 2023—overview. This includes the following Practice Note: Contract modification—PA 2023. Modification of public contracts This Practice Note provides guidance on the modification and termination of public contracts and framework agreements caught by the Public

Most projects are underpinned by a complex web of contractual relationships between all the parties involved in the project (eg the project company, equity investors, contractors, sub-contractors, offtakers and suppliers). These documents are generally referred to as the 'project documents' (see: Project documents—issues for lenders—overview). In projects involving the production or exploitation of a product (eg a power project or a mine project), the offtake contracts are some of the principal project documents. What is an offtake contract? An offtake contract is a contract under which a third party (the Offtaker) agrees to buy a certain amount of the product produced by a project at an agreed price. The product is often a commodity such as oil, gas, minerals or power. The purpose of an offtake contract is to: • secure a predictable revenue stream for the project, and • ensure that there is a guaranteed buyer for project production (particularly where demand for the product is likely to fluctuate) It is not always necessary for the project company to

Variation of public contracts The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR 2015), SI 2015/102, reg 72 is aimed at clarifying the extent to which concluded public contracts and frameworks tendered under PCR 2015, SI 2015/102 may be amended without advertising a new tender process. It establishes ‘safe harbours’ for certain types of amendments in line with principles established in previous case law. These safe harbours include, among others circumstances where the need for modification has been brought about by unforeseen circumstances, the modification does not alter the overall content of the contract and any increase in price does not exceed 50% of the original contract value. Amendments which fall outside the safe harbours will require a new procurement procedure in accordance with PCR 2015, SI 2015/102. For background reading, see Practice Notes: • Modification and termination of public contracts—pre-PA 2023 [Archived] • Changes to award criteria during a procurement procedure—pre-PA 2023 [Archived] • Varying public contracts Judicial consideration The

This Practice Note considers place of work and mobility clauses. In particular, it covers the requirements of a written statement of particulars of employment in relation to place of work, the use of mobility clauses in contracts of employment and when these will be enforced, whether a mobility clause will be implied in the absence of an express term, and the impact of a mobility clause in a redundancy situation. The written statement of particulars of employment issued to a worker to comply with section 1 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996), which usually forms part of a contract of employment, must include details of the worker’s place of work or, where the worker is required or permitted to work at various places, an indication of that, and the address of the employer. For sample wording, see Precedents: • Employment contract basic version (clause 6) • Executive service agreement (clause 6) • Clauses—place of work, residence, mobility and relocation (a set of clauses covering usual place of work, location, place of residence, requirement

This Practice Note provides an overview of the contractual considerations which arise when leasing or hiring equipment, being a contract for the simple hire or bailment of goods, in a business to business transaction. This Practice Note does not consider hire purchase or consumer hire. Introduction Equipment leasing, or equipment hiring, is an expression applied to various agreements which involve a contract of simple hire or bailment of goods. There are many reasons why parties may consider leasing or hiring assets or equipment, including to provide temporary access to equipment or to provide an alternative form of financing equipment purchases. Typically, an equipment lease or hire transaction involves a lessor (also referred to as a supplier or owner) who owns the equipment and a lessee (also referred to as a hirer) who, in return for consideration (namely rentals or a hire fee), obtains use of the equipment pursuant to the agreed contractual terms. In lease or hire arrangements involving multiple, separate transactions, a master lease agreement is often used with the terms for each tranche of equipment

Form N510 must be completed when serving the claim form out of the jurisdiction in circumstances in which the permission of the court is not required. This applies in a number of cases including when serving on a claim form on

What is novation? Novation is the transfer of one party’s rights and obligations under a contract to a third party. Novation effectively substitutes a contracting party (the ‘outgoing party’) with a new party (the ‘incoming party’) and, in legal terms, it amounts to the extinguishing of the original contract and the creation of a new contract under which the same obligations are to be performed, but by different parties. Novation must be distinguished from assignment—assignment only permits the benefits of a contract to be transferred, whereas novation allows both the benefit and the burden to be transferred to the incoming third party. Benefits of a contract include the right to performance of that contract; burdens include contractual obligations such as the duty to perform the obligations and to make payments under the contract. See Practice Notes: Assignment in construction contracts and Legal and equitable assignment in construction contracts. Novation in the construction industry Novation is most commonly used in construction projects in the following circumstances: • transfer of design consultants’ appointments from the employer to a design and build

Contaminated land Contaminated land must pose 'unacceptable risks' to human health or the environment. As a minimum, land should not be capable of being determined as contaminated land under Part IIA of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA 1990)—see Practice Note: Contaminated land—definition of contaminated land. Liability Liability for contaminated land under Part IIA of the EPA 1990 attaches in the first instance to causers and knowing permitters of contamination (Class A persons), and where no Class A person can be found to owners and occupiers (Class B persons). For Class A persons, the concept of 'knowingly permitting' requires (House of Lords, Hansard, 11 July 1995, col 1497): • knowledge that the substances in question were in,