TABLE OF CONTENTS The theme of this Guide is that the commercial engineer should understand and strive in the achievement of the company's commercial goals of profits, cash flow and growth. The vehicles for this include the protection and exploitation of intellectual property and the negotiation of good contracts. An overriding objective is to do business at the lowest possible risk. The last two chapters have gone to some length to explain how a contract works in practice and to illustrate just how much the contract is a device for allocating and avoiding risk. Contract negotiations crystallise the battle for risk avoidance and if problems arise during contract performance then one or both sides may try to hide behind the contract. With such a fraught, antagonistic basis for a legal relationship it is a wonder at all that companies ever manage to do business on larger projects (on smaller transactions risks are often ignored or, if considered at all, treated as having negligible effect). But working together is essential if the commercial goals are to be realised, particularly as the marketplace is increasingly international. In this chapter the text will consider some of the more common ways in which companies work together and will draw out the distinctions between antagonistic and co-operative dealings.
Perhaps surprisingly, the first thing to consider is whether the law has anything to say about the freedom with which companies may work together. It does have plenty to say, under what is known as competition law...
