Advice please

Hayes99

Hi all. I’m after some advice. We had a client who came to us to write a healthcare tender for them. We explained to them verbally that there is no guarantee that they will win the tender since it’s upto the council to award or not, however we will write it to the best of our ability. We sent them an invoice with the words “invoice to write a tender for xx(councils name) tender. We wrote the tender and they were happy to submit it. Unfortunately they did not win the tender and I advised them to get feedback as to why not. 

The council came back saying we should have included certain tops on some questions. I mentioned that we would be happy to resubmit the tender based on the feedback but the next thing I found is a small claims court letter. What are our chances of winning if it went to court?

DiddyDavies

Hayes99 said:

The council came back saying we should have included certain tops on some questions. I mentioned that we would be happy to resubmit the tender based on the feedback but the next thing I found is a small claims court letter. What are our chances of winning if it went to court?

This isn't the correct forum for this as it's a consumer advice site and yours is a business related contract.
However, you took on a job to write a tender and as the council have stated that there was information missing from that tender then IMO, you didn't complete the job properly so your client may well have a good case against you.

JJ_Egan

This is a business to business problem and you are essentially asking a Consumer forum where random non legal users may reply .

How much is the claim for ?? . Your solicitor would be the one to give better information .

MattMattMattUK

Hayes99 said:

Hi all. I’m after some advice. We had a client who came to us to write a healthcare tender for them. We explained to them verbally that there is no guarantee that they will win the tender since it’s upto the council to award or not, however we will write it to the best of our ability. We sent them an invoice with the words “invoice to write a tender for xx(councils name) tender. We wrote the tender and they were happy to submit it. Unfortunately they did not win the tender and I advised them to get feedback as to why not. 

The council came back saying we should have included certain tops on some questions. I mentioned that we would be happy to resubmit the tender based on the feedback but the next thing I found is a small claims court letter. What are our chances of winning if it went to court?

That depends, what is the nature of your business and are you professionally regulated, was there a brief, was there contract, was the error obvious "eg did the tender document supplied to you specify that the "tops" must be on the questions or were you not supplied with the relevant documentation, if you were not then did you raise the issue that you were missing some documentation (Tenders usually detail all the relevant documents contained within)?

It does seem odd to me to engage a third party to complete a tender, I have worked in and now deal with regularly businesses from one man bands to multi-nationals worth tens of billions of pounds and whilst they might employ a third party with a specific element of a tender process they would never let a third party write the whole tender for them, nor surrender overall control of that tender to the third party. 

As to whether you or they would win in court, that depends on the claim and how you defend it. On what grounds are they submitting the claim?

williamgriffin

Hayes99 said:

Hi all. I’m after some advice. We had a client who came to us to write a healthcare tender for them. We explained to them verbally that there is no guarantee that they will win the tender since it’s upto the council to award or not, however we will write it to the best of our ability. We sent them an invoice with the words “invoice to write a tender for xx(councils name) tender. We wrote the tender and they were happy to submit it. Unfortunately they did not win the tender and I advised them to get feedback as to why not. 

The council came back saying we should have included certain tops on some questions. I mentioned that we would be happy to resubmit the tender based on the feedback but the next thing I found is a small claims court letter. What are our chances of winning if it went to court?

It would appear the contract wasn't awarded due to an error in the submission. If it was something you should have been or were aware of ie your error I'd say you may lose.

If it were an emission by your client you should win, however more information would be required. 

unholyangel

Wait, have the council said the client would've won the tender if not for the omission? Or did they give it as feedback on how to improve future bids? 

You may even find there was a reason he didn't win that wouldn't be proper for the council to disclose. 

But that only affects your liability for damages rather than refund or reduction in price. The latter would be determined by what exactly you were contracted for, what direction the client gave and in what capacity you/your business holds itself out as. For example, if you held yourself out as an expert knowing what you were doing when you've never done it before. As it's b2b both would be expected to carry out due diligence, but it has its limitations.