AS4000:2025 – What is all the fuss about?

With the recent release of the updat­ed AS4000:2025, for the first time in over 28 years, many stake­hold­ers in the con­struc­tion indus­try are ques­tion­ing if there is an impact on their risk pro­file when using this updat­ed AS4000:2025. 

The sim­ple answer, by Stan­dards Aus­tralia, is there has been no sig­nif­i­cant change to the allo­ca­tion of risk. Notwith­stand­ing this and in any event, before using the AS4000:2025, or an old­er ver­sion, one should still con­sid­er if the con­tract you are using address­es your appetite for risk.

Stan­dards Aus­tralia have pub­lished a list of the main changes, acces­si­ble at Stan­dards Aus­tralia updates AS 4000:2025 Gen­er­al Con­di­tions of Con­tract — Stan­dards Aus­tralia and include:

• the inclu­sion of a sim­ple For­mal Instru­ment of Agreement
• inclu­sion of pro­vi­sions deal­ing with leg­isla­tive oblig­a­tions under A New Tax Sys­tem (Goods and Ser­vices Tax) Act 1999 (Cth), Per­son­al Prop­er­ty Secu­ri­ties Act 2009 (Cth)
• appoint­ing the Con­trac­tor to the role of Prin­ci­pal Con­trac­tor under work health and safe­ty legislation
• sim­pli­fied and con­sol­i­dat­ed def­i­n­i­tions and ter­mi­nol­o­gy includ­ing using more mod­ern language
• use of con­sis­tent lan­guage for time peri­ods (e.g. using ​“as soon as prac­ti­ca­ble” rather than a range of terms)
• allow­ing for a Date of Prac­ti­cal Com­ple­tion pri­or to the date of the Cer­tifi­cate of Prac­ti­cal Completion
• pro­vi­sions for greater flex­i­bil­i­ty in choos­ing a dis­pute res­o­lu­tion forum that best meets the busi­ness needs 
• includ­ing a régime for assess­ment of delay costs payable to the Contractor
• align­ment of the insol­ven­cy pro­vi­sions with cur­rent legislation

Fail­ing to appre­ci­ate the legal nuances of the AS4000 may mean you have neg­a­tive­ly and unknow­ing­ly absorbed more risk, which could ulti­mate­ly increase your costs and expo­sure on a project. Care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion is required before using the AS4000:2025 or the AS4000:1997. 

Tran­si­tion­ing from the AS4000:1997 (old­er ver­sion) to the updat­ed AS4000:2025 — What to do next?

• if you were using the AS4000:1997 as your tem­plate stan­dard form con­tract (amend­ed or una­mend­ed), con­tact Stan­dards Aus­tralia to enquire about chang­ing your exist­ing licence to be used for the AS4000:2025
• have a tran­si­tion plan migrat­ing to use of the updat­ed AS4000:2025. Chang­ing to the updat­ed AS4000:2025 has some ben­e­fit because few­er depar­tures may be raised due to updates in law, use of mod­ern and more con­cise lan­guage pro­vid­ing a more read­able and under­stand­able contract
• con­tact an expe­ri­ence solic­i­tor to assist you with under­stand­ing the pro­vi­sions and mak­ing any nec­es­sary amendments

Notwith­stand­ing the amend­ments, Swaab does not rec­om­mend using the una­mend­ed AS4000:2025 with­out care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion of its pro­vi­sions, espe­cial­ly if you are intend­ing to use the AS4000 for sig­nif­i­cant or com­plex projects. 

Swaab can assist with amend­ing or review­ing the AS4000 to accu­rate­ly reflect your com­mer­cial posi­tion and your appetite for risk (if required), includ­ing the pro­vi­sions on:

• insol­ven­cy, includ­ing rights to ter­mi­nate or take work out of con­trac­tors hands
• war­ranties and indemnities
• recourse to security
• exten­sion of time regimes, such as set­ting stricter time lim­its eg. noti­fi­ca­tion of Latent Con­di­tions under clause 25 (AS4000:2025)
• not allow­ing prac­ti­cal com­ple­tion to be achieved before the date that a Cer­tifi­cate of Prac­ti­cal Com­ple­tion is provided
• check that lim­i­ta­tions of lia­bil­i­ty and liq­ui­dat­ed damages
• the method of dis­pute resolution
• impli­ca­tions of includ­ing the Per­son­al Prop­er­ty Secu­ri­ties Act 2009 (Cth)
• pre­pare tai­lored pro­vi­sions for leg­is­la­tion which is State or Ter­ri­to­ry spe­cif­ic. For exam­ple in New South Wales Swaab has exper­tise in prepar­ing claus­es on the Home Build­ing Act 1989, Stra­ta Schemes Man­age­ment Act 2015, Res­i­den­tial Apart­ment Build­ings (Com­pli­ance and Enforce­ment Pow­ers) Act 2020, Design and Build­ing Prac­ti­tion­ers Act 2020, Build­ing and Con­struc­tion Indus­try Secu­ri­ty of Pay­ment Act 1999, Com­pe­ti­tion and Con­sumer Act 2010 (Cth) – Sched­ule 2, 

Con­tact Swaab’s expe­ri­enced team of lawyers Con­struc­tion Law in Syd­ney | Swaab, led by part­ners Helen Kow­al, Part­ner | Swaab and Mark Glynn, Part­ner | Swaab to dis­cuss or get assis­tance with changes to the AS4000 or any Aus­tralian Stan­dard contract. 

Want to read more on select­ing and edit­ing con­struc­tion con­tracts? Fol­low the link to our recent arti­cle: Con­struc­tion con­tracts are more than just a doc­u­ment — remove… | Swaab

Swaab’s stra­ta and con­struc­tion spe­cial­ist team send our indus­try spe­cif­ic updates by email. If you would like to receive our indus­try spe­cif­ic updates, please email us at rkb@​swaab.​com.​au.