Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977: does it provide a good model in regulating risk allocation provisions in oilfield contracts in Malaysia?

The unequal bargaining power of the parties in the oil and gas industry has lead to the imbalanced contractual risk allocation in oilfield contracts in Malaysia. In this regard, there is a prospect that the operators pass an unfair share of the risks on to the contractors. However, the contractors...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wan Zahari, Wan Mohd. Zulhafiz
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Inderscience 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:http://irep.iium.edu.my/43900/2/IJTGM80101_Zulhafiz.pdf
http://irep.iium.edu.my/43900/
http://www.inderscience.com/info/inarticle.php?artid=67969
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The unequal bargaining power of the parties in the oil and gas industry has lead to the imbalanced contractual risk allocation in oilfield contracts in Malaysia. In this regard, there is a prospect that the operators pass an unfair share of the risks on to the contractors. However, the contractors might still enter into such imbalanced agreement to secure a job and thereby assume these risks. In this paper, it is argued that a statutory controlling mechanism, such as Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 (UCTA) in the UK, should be adopted to protect the liability of the contractor in relation to the risk allocation provisions of oilfield contracts in Malaysia. This paper seeks to analyse the deficiencies of the risk allocation provisions of oilfield contracts in Malaysia and to consider whether the principle of reasonableness test as provided in UCTA could provide a potential solution. It will employ a combination of case study and analysis.