| dc.description.abstract | Open-end Contract (or Open Contract, OC) is a form of contract whose terms do not constitute the entire agreement between the contracting parties and whose clauses or provisions can be changed or modified without mutual consent. Recently, OC has been widely adopted in maintenance or emergency repair in public works. This practice allows government agencies to react to situations rapidly while fully abiding by the rules of Government Procurement. Along with the common use of OC, some prominent disputes specific to OC are gradually seen. This increased trend of OC-related disputes reflects the possible defects located in current OC terms.
This purpose of this work is to examine the above-mentioned trend, and to try to identify the possible defects of OC terms, as well as the remedies to them. This work first reviews a series of form contracts propagated by Public Construction Commission, Executive Yuan. The prominent features and characteristics are identified from this review. This work then investigates the entire database of Judiciary Yuan legal cases, dated from 2006 to 2020; and with proper keywords, a total of 241 cases are crossed referenced.
Out of the 241 cases, there are high concentration on six major dispute types, including budget ceiling, reserved materials, notice to proceed, staged delay damages, warranties, and duplicate contracting. This work targets at the six types of disputes and collects expert opinions in resolving those disputes. This work also proposes a list of recommendations for relevant government agencies to refine their OC for future use. | en_US |