14.7.1 Costs arising from changes in non-discriminatory/non-specific legislation (i.e. General Changes in Law) can either be for the account of the Contractor or shared between the Contractor and the Authority.
14.7.2 General Changes in Law are generally only at the Contractor's sole risk in specific sectors where the length of the Contract is such that the Contractor is comfortable that the risk of General Changes in Law occurring is low, or where the relationship between the parties and the history of changes in the sector concerned is such that the Contractor is prepared to accept this risk. For example, in some MOD projects this risk is passed to the Contractor.
14.7.3 Although the Contractor may appear to bear all the risk of General Changes in Law, this approach will often involve some method of mitigating the effect on the Contractor. For example, market testing, benchmarking and/or indexation provisions will in fact lead to the sharing of some of this risk (see Section 15 (Price Variations)) in that additional operating costs may be reflected in increases to the Unitary Charge following a benchmarking or market testing and/or indexation, although the Contractor will bear such risk for the period up to benchmarking or market testing.