Certified contracts to be intra vires
2.—(1) Where a district council has entered into a contract, the contract shall, if it is a certified contract, have effect (and be deemed always to have had effect) as if the district council had had power to enter into it (and had exercised that power properly in entering into it).
(2) For the purposes of this Part a contract entered into by a district council is a certified contract if (and, subject to subsections (3) and (4), only if) the certification requirements have been satisfied by the district council with respect to the contract and they were so satisfied before the end of the certification period.
(3) A contract entered into by a district council shall be treated as a certified contract during the certification period if the contract provides that the certification requirements are intended to be satisfied by the district council with respect to the contract before the end of that period.
(4) Where a district council has entered into a contract which is a certified contract (“the existing contract”) and the existing contract is replaced by a contract entered into by it with a person or persons not identical with the person or persons with whom it entered into the existing contract, the replacement contract is also a certified contract if—
(a)the period for which it operates or is intended to operate ends at the same time as the period for which the existing contract was to operate, and
(b)apart from that, its provisions are the same as those of the existing contract.
(5) In this Part “the certification period”, in relation to a contract entered into by a district council, means the period of 6 weeks beginning with the day on which the district council entered into the contract.
(6) Subsection (1) is subject to section 5 (special provisions about judicial reviews and audit reviews).
(7) The application of subsection (1) in relation to a contract entered into by a district council does not affect any claim for damages made by a person who is not (and has never been) a party to the contract in respect of a breach by the district council of any duty to do, or not to do, something before entering into the contract, including, in particular, any such duty imposed by—
(a)a statutory provision for giving effect to any Community obligation relating to public procurement; or
(b)Article 19(1) of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Northern Ireland) Order 1992 (NI 6).