This article is a guide to deemed acceptance under NEC contracts, and how this is handled within FastDraft.
This guide contains the following:
Related Articles:
What is deemed acceptance?
Deemed acceptance refers to the provisions within NEC contracts where a notification of a compensation event, quotation or programme is treated as accepted due to a lack of a response from the recipient.
For example, under NEC3 ECC unamended terms, if a Contractor submits a quotation for a compensation event and the Project Manager fails to reply within 14 days, the Contractor may remind them of this and, if the Project Manager still fails to respond within a further 14 days of that notice the quotation notification is treated as accepted. NEC4 extended this concept to programme submissions.
The specifics (i.e. which types of notice, when the countdown starts, how long) differ from contract to contract but, as a rule, the countdown to an item being treated as accepted only starts after the reply is overdue and the sender has notified the recipient of their failure to respond. However, NEC short contracts (ECSC, ECSS, PSSC, TSSC) simplify this by starting the countdown immediately.
Deemed acceptance within FastDraft
Workflows
Where appropriate, FastDraft can be configured to enable deemed acceptance of the following (the particular combination that applies will depend on the specific terms of each contract):
- Supplier's programme submission
- Supplier's CE Notification
- CE quotation
Related notices
The countdown to a CEN or Quote or Programme being treated as accepted will either be triggered immediately (generally for short contracts only) or, more commonly, by a related notice. Where triggered by a related notice, the relevant clauses within the Supplier Notifications workflow will have been configured to have the appropriate effect.
The specific clauses vary from contract to contract but for NEC4 ECC, for example, the following clauses would be configured to affect the Programme/CEN/Quote workflows respectively:
31.3 failure to reply to a programme
61.4 failure to reply to a notification of a compensation event
62.6 failure to reply to a compensation event quotation
64.4 failure to assess a compensation event*
* coming soon
Notifications must be linked to a specific programme or compensation event prior to being communicated (we recommend using the 'Create Related Items...' button) in order for FastDraft to be able to determine which item is to be treated as accepted.
Sending a notification of failure to reply before the item is overdue will have no effect.
Deemed acceptance date
Once the countdown to deemed acceptance has been triggered, the status and response due date of the item will appear the same but you will additionally see a Deemed Acceptance Date in the register (if not visible this can be added from the list of available columns).
Status
If the recipient fails to reply by the end of the Deemed Acceptance Date, FastDraft will automatically set the status to Treated as accepted.
Configuration
Our latest NEC3/NEC4 contract templates have been updated to include the appropriate configurations for handling deemed acceptance (where applicable). Any new configurations based on these templates will include deemed acceptance.
Default NEC3 ECC v4.0
Default NEC3 ECS v4.0
Default NEC3 PSC v4.0
Default NEC3 SC v4.0
Default NEC3 TSC v4.0
Default NEC4 ECC v4.0
Default NEC4 ECS v4.0
Default NEC4 ECSC v4.0
Default NEC4 ECSS v4.0
Default NEC4 FMC v4.0
Default NEC4 FMS v4.0
Default NEC4 PSC v4.0
Default NEC4 PSS v4.0
Default NEC4 PSSC v4.0
Default NEC4 TSC v4.0
Default NEC4 TSS v4.0
Default NEC4 TSSC v4.0
Contract templates created prior to 1st February 2025 will need to be updated in order to take advantage of this functionality.
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