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Sidebar’s bLAWg posts

Sidebar’s bLAWg delivers sharp, practical insights on contract and construction law in South Africa—making complex legal issues clear and actionable for industry professionals.

  • I saw a signed PDF version of a construction contract worth tens of millions on the internet. Awarded to a firm that is not CIDB-graded.

    This is, to my knowledge, a common occurrence. The parties are a local municipality on one side, and a firm of consulting engineers, appointed as the design-build contractor for works, on the other side.  The contract is substantially based on the FIDIC Yellow Book. The recitals indicated that the firm had already performed consulting work…

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  • Pay now, argue later

    Imagine this: an adjudicator has just ordered you, the employer, to pay your contractor a very large sum of money. You are convinced the decision is wrong. You issue your notice of dissatisfaction the same week and refer the dispute to arbitration. So – can you hold on to your money until the arbitrator decides?…

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  • Your tender just expired…and there is nothing you can do about it

    Anyone involved in South African public procurement knows the “tender validity period”.  The fixed window, stated in the tender invitation, during which a bid remains open for acceptance and bidders stay bound to their quoted prices. The trouble is, organs of state often run out of time, and the period quietly expires before an award…

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  • Construction Guarantees in South Africa: the High Court says they’re Insurance

    On 23 March 2026, the Gauteng Division of the High Court handed down a judgment in Elasah Risk Consultants (Pty) Ltd and Another v National Credit Regulator and Others, confirming that construction guarantees* issued by Fusion Guarantees (Pty) Ltd constitute non-life insurance policies under the Insurance Act 18 of 2017. *The guarantees submitted to the…

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  • Is your liability limited under the South African CIDB Standard Professional Services Contract, 2009?

    In public tenders for engineering consultancy services, many (if not most) organs of state use the CIDB Standard Professional Services Contract 2009 as the proposed consultancy services agreement, which will form the contract between the parties after tender award (the “Contract”).  While working in-house, we found that most engineers and project managers believed that, under…

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  • The difference between insurance requirements and liability limits

    Engineering consultants often confuse two very different concepts: professional indemnity (PI) insurance and contractual limitation of liability. They may sound like the same thing, but they are separate and unrelated mechanisms. Insurance requirements are about how much minimum cover a client demands you carry, while a liability limit is about how much responsibility you legally…

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  • Client-pleasing behaviour: The death of Engineering Professionalism?

    Across engineering disciplines and countries, engineers are bending the knee to their clients – sacrificing professionalism and compromising public safety in the name of keeping the client happy. This behaviour has a name: client-pleasing. And for every Registered Person under the Engineering Profession Act 46 of 2000, where it puts the public at risk, it…

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  • Unlawful Retention: What Every Contractor Should Know

    If you are a contractor on a government project in South Africa, there is a good chance you are handing over more money in retention and security than the law allows. And the public sector client holding it may not even know they are acting unlawfully. This is not a technicality. It is a binding…

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