There are so many standard form of contract used in construction industry. Malaysia itself has at least 4 commonly used standard form of contract: PWD, PAM, CIDB, and IEM. This appears because there is a different interest and necessity of both parties. So which one should be followed? How can both parties enter into a contract under one specific standard form? In my opinion, it will be depended on the type of works (private or public) and the employer’s decision.
As a conclusion, there are so many advantages as well as disadvantages of using standard form of contract in construction industry. This paper discuss both issues so that we as practitioners in construction industry can clearly understand the weaknesses of standard form of contract so that we can manage how to reduce these in our real practice. One final word from the Reading Construction Forum remarked that:
“Two things are especially striking about the past 800 years of building history. The first is that at no time has there been widespread use of a single or a standard method of procuring buildings; time and again people have tried new ways as a result of their dissatisfaction with previous methods. The second is how little the problems have changed over the years, and how regularly the same ones crop up.”[1]
[1] Flanagan, Roger et al., see n. 18 above, p. 13
Hansen's Kammer 