Project participants and team members		Martin Betts
Qld Dept of Main Roads	Ross Guppy
Qld Dept of Public Works	Michelle Porter, Rob Williams,
Queensland University of Technology	Martin Betts- Project Leader, Colin Boyd, Adrian Burgess, Sharon Christensen, Edward Dawson, Bill Duncan, Brian Fitzgerald, Ernest Foo, Neal Ryan, Debbie Smit, Paul Smith
Brisbane City Council	Neil Abel
University of Newcastle	Kerry London

Despite the Federal Governments Electronic Transaction Act of 1999 confirming the general principle that there is no impediment to a person entering contracts via electronic communication, the basis and protocols for working electronically remain undeveloped. All organisations will be increasingly required to trade electronically. A basis for legally compliant electronic trading, particularly the negotiation and establishment of contracts, together with the appropriate software tools, needs to be established. Construction organisations currently have little knowledge of, and expertise in, the legal and security aspects of trading on-line. Differences between State and Commonwealth legislation exacerbate this situation. Construction organisations and their clients need tools to facilitate secure and legally admissible (exclusive) use of information and communication technology (ICT) in their practices.

This project will define construction industry contract requirements for electronic information exchange and provide guidelines to facilitate on-line trading which conform to legal standards. It will enable construction organisations and their clients to be confident of the legal basis for their electronic business transactions. The guidelines provided will include: a clear guide for users with respect to the legal basis for their information exchange, a risk analysis guide to assess the needs for legal provision, and a security guide to enable on-line contract negotiation to be safely achieved without dispute.