Acceptance of Works in Work Contracts: A Case Study of Taiwan Region of China

Customers are not obliged to accepting a work produced by the contractor under "Taiwan's Civil Law". Although there is a provision in "the Government Procurement Act" that "An entity conducting a procurement for construction work or property shall set a time-limit for inspection and acceptance, and may conduct partial acceptance." However, most contracts have deemed that the work passing the inspection is equal to acceptance, and the customer often delays the inspection procedure. While German Civil Code and VOB/B Article 12 regulates that it is equivalent to acceptance if the customer does not accept the work within a reasonable period of time specified for him by the contractor, although he is under a duty to do so. It also owes the German Civil Code and VOB/B Article 12 Section 2 that the contractor may request the ordering party to accept the work for partial completion. Thus, Taiwan's contract has exposed contractors to the risk of insufficient cash flow. From the perspective of comparative law, this article discusses the provisions of the German and Swiss related regulations, and FIDIC as a reference for resolving dilemmas.