Section 2: Certified contracts to be intra vires
This section is the first of a two-staged approach providing “safe harbour” protection from legal challenge to private sector contractors and their financiers. It does so by introducing a presumption that a certified contract is legal for private law purposes. The section provides that, even if a council had no power at all to enter into a contract or had abused a power it did have, a certified contract is presumed to be legal unless it is successfully challenged by means of a public law review (i.e. by judicial or audit review).
