A participant at my recent Canberra seminar made me aware of “self-deleting” contract provisions. I gather that it’s a standard notion in government contracts.
Here’s an example:
CLAUSES MADE INAPPLICABLE BY THE TYPE OF ORDER OR CONTRACT ARE SELF-DELETING.
And another:
THE FOLLOWING CLAUSES ARE INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE AND ARE SELF-DELETING IF NOT APPLICABLE:
“Self-deleting” would seem to be something dreamed up by a bureaucrat as an alternative to “do not apply” or “are excluded”. Is the concept expressed in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (or the Australian equivalent) and therefore unavoidable? Or is there scope for using an alternative to “self-deleting”?