By Holly McAdam
What happens when your contract for information and
communications technology (ICT) services comes to an end? Agency
ICT contracts generally have a clause dealing with contractor
handover at the end of the term stating that, within a certain
period of time after the date of the contract, the parties will
work together to agree a transition plan. The recent NSW Supreme
Court case of Cuscal Ltd v First Data Resources Australia
Ltd demonstrates the dangers of this type of arrangement.
Background
The matter involved a contract starting on 1 January 2008, under
which First Data agreed to provide Cuscal with data transfer
services for five years. Cuscal then resupplied those services to
its customers, credit unions and financial service providers, who
required the services to perform EFTPOS transactions and ATM
withdrawals of cash.
