Cases - Countrywide Communications Ltd v ICL Pathway Ltd (2000) CLC 324

Record details

Name

Countrywide Communications Ltd v ICL Pathway Ltd (2000) CLC 324

Date

(2000)

Citation

CLC 324

Keywords

Contracts - tenders - bid for a substantial contract - recompense for work done on a bid - whether an unsuccessful bidder of a consortium was entitled to payment for its work done on a quantum meruit basis

Summary

A consortium was assembled to make a bid for a substantial contract. Preparation for making the bid involved the members of the consortium in considerable amounts of work. The expectation was that, if the bid succeeded, the members of the consortium would be rewarded through payments made under the resulting contract. If no contract was obtained it was recognised that there would be no recompense for work done. The bid was successful, but one of the members of the consortium was then excluded from participation in the resultant contract. The Court held a right to payment on a quantum meruit basis. It considered that appropriate factors would be:

• whether the services were of a kind which would normally be given free of charge;
• the terms in which the request to perform the services was made (e.g. whether expressed to be 'subject to contract');
• the nature of the benefit which has resulted to the defendants - whether it was 'real' (although the performance of the services might of itself be sufficient to constitute a benefit);
• the circumstances in which the anticipated contract might not materialise and whether in particular they might be said to involve 'fault' on the part of the defendant, or to be outside the scope of the risk undertaken by the claimant at the outset.