The position is set before the contract is signed
Every dollar spent establishing the contract correctly returns a multiple of every dollar later spent disputing it. It is the least visible phase of a project and by a considerable margin the highest leverage.
What is decided here
The delivery model, the contract form and the allocation of risk determine what is recoverable for the remainder of the project. A risk accepted at tender because it appeared remote becomes, two years later, the reason an entitlement does not exist. A pricing assumption left unqualified becomes the basis on which a variation is refused.
The positions that hold in delivery are the ones secured at signature. The work at this stage is to identify them while they can still be negotiated.
How we approach it
Delivery and contract strategy
The choice of delivery model and contract form is a commercial decision with consequences that persist for the life of the project. We advise on the structures that govern major infrastructure — lump sum, design and construct, guaranteed maximum price, cost reimbursable, incentivised target cost, managing contractor, alliance and PPP arrangements — and on how risk should be allocated given the maturity of the design, the certainty of the site conditions and the capability of the party being asked to carry it. A risk allocation that cannot be delivered is not a risk transfer; it is a dispute with a delayed start date.
Reviewing the contract before it binds you
We review tender documentation and contract conditions to identify the positions that will not survive delivery. Time bars and notice regimes that cannot realistically be complied with on a live project. Obligations that have been assumed but not priced. Latent condition and site risk allocation that does not reflect the information available. Liquidated damages exposure disproportionate to the value of the work. And, critically, the interface between head contract and subcontract terms, where a gap between what is owed upstream and what is recoverable downstream becomes the subcontractor’s exposure or the contractor’s loss. Risk and opportunity are assessed and quantified together — not only the exposures to be qualified or priced, but the opportunities the contract structure makes available and the conditions on which they depend. Findings are prepared as qualifications and departure schedules structured for negotiation.
Tender and bid commercial workstreams
On a competitive bid, the commercial position and the price are the same document. We develop bid and pricing strategy, prepare commercial submissions, and maintain consistency between the estimating, planning and commercial functions so that the price reflects the programme and both reflect the contract being offered. Where an assumption underpins the price, it is recorded in terms capable of supporting a variation later.
Contract negotiation and structuring
We negotiate head contracts, subcontracts, consultancy agreements, master service agreements and framework agreements, together with the early contractor involvement and early works agreements that frequently precede them. On projects proceeding under a guaranteed maximum price, we structure the arrangement itself — including component pricing that allows early works to commence ahead of the final binding proposal, without prejudicing the position on the balance of the scope.
Teaming, joint venture and consortium arrangements
Where delivery requires more than one party, the agreement between them matters as much as the agreement with the client. We prepare and negotiate teaming agreements, joint venture and consortium structures, and the governance frameworks that support them — participant obligations, decision rights, cost sharing, deadlock provisions and exit arrangements. These are commercial relationships between organisations that must collaborate on one project while competing on the next, and they are best structured on that understanding.
Transaction management
For principals and delivery partners, we lead procurement and transaction workstreams from strategy through to award and financial close, including the preparation of board and investment committee approval papers and the governance required to support a decision of that scale.
How we negotiate
Contract negotiation is a commercial exercise before it is a legal one. The objective is not to remove every risk a review identifies, but to secure the terms that will determine the outcome — and to reach agreement on the rest.
We weigh each position against its likelihood and its priced consequence, distinguishing the clauses that will be tested in delivery from those that will not. Where a position matters, we hold it. Where a departure would be resisted, we look for the mechanism that achieves the same protection by another route: a definition amended rather than a clause deleted, an assumption recorded in the pricing basis, a notice regime made workable rather than removed.
This keeps the departure schedule short and the negotiation closeable, without conceding the terms that carry real exposure. Where a matter requires legal advice, we work alongside your legal advisers and brief them on the commercial position they are protecting.
Who we act for
Principals structuring a procurement. Contractors and joint ventures preparing a bid. Subcontractors reviewing terms passed down from a head contract they did not negotiate.
Discuss an engagement
An initial conversation carries no obligation. Where StratMonk is not the appropriate fit, we will say so.
Start a conversation
Describe the circumstances and we will advise on the appropriate approach.