Quick question | The Employee by Joshua Schwebel

Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com> To: Carl Schwebel <██████████████████████ >

Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 9:10 AM

Hi Dad, is there a good time to call you today?

I just have a quick question about legal terminology...

A question for a grant application (that my employee is applying for) is as follows:

Is this project tendered or open to competitive bidding by two or more parties? Yes/No (to be eligible for a Capital grant from the City of London, the project must be tendered or open to competitive bidding by two or more parties.)

I think that this is asking if the renovation / building contract will be open for multiple and comparative bids, to avoid cronyism and offering things to friends ahead of opening up to anyone qualified to do the job. Is that correct / is that what this means??

I need this answer today, sorry, thank you, but you can also just write to say very shortly if my understanding is correct or not.

hearts and love and talk soon

Carl Schwebel <██████████████████████ >

Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 12:01 PM

Hi dear,

We can talk after 1PM if you want. I'm going out for a walk in a minute.

The question is ambiguous. Tender is a formal process in which specifications for the work, the rules for the bidding process and forms of contract documents are all made public. The process is intended to ensure that all potential bidders are treated fairly and equally. Tender packages can be very complex and once published are not changed (or at least changes made after parties have started to prepare their bids cannot be prejudicial to any of the bidding parties and must, of course be advised to all of the potential bidders at the same time. You can see examples at https://london.bidsandtenders.ca/.

Because it is so formal, tendering a project is very different from seeking competitive bids or getting estimates from different contractors - an informal process. I don't know whether this informal process is what they mean by "open to competitive bidding by two or more parties". They may be satisfied as long as the project is not sole sourced, as you suggest. But the wording is not clear.

Love, d.