A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that details each party's rights and obligations in performance of that contract. Some examples of common contracts used by Commonwealth entities are detailed in this guide.
At its most basic, a contract requires an offer, acceptance of that offer and consideration:
• the parties to the contract must have both intended to be legally bound
• the terms of the contract must be certain and
• each party must have the capacity to enter into the contract.
For most contracts, there is no particular form that is required. While a contract does not necessarily need to be in writing to be enforceable, the Commonwealth Procurement Rules (CPRs) paragraph 7.4 state that contracts should be in written form.