Thailand tightens blacklist rules for unsafe contractors
Thailand can now treat serious harm caused by state construction contractors as abandonment, exposing firms to termination and blacklisting
- Thailand has expanded the legal definition of "abandonment of work" to include contractor actions that cause serious harm to public life, safety, or property.
- The new rule closes a loophole that previously allowed contractors causing serious accidents to avoid being blacklisted and continue bidding for state projects.
- This change allows the government to initiate a formal blacklisting process against unsafe contractors, even if they have not physically left the job site.
- Once a contractor is formally declared to have abandoned work on these safety grounds, they can be barred from state contracts for two to ten years.
Thailand has tightened its rules governing state construction contracts, allowing serious harm caused by a contractor’s work or failure to act to be treated as “abandonment of work”, opening the way to contract action and blacklisting.
The Ministerial Regulation Prescribing Acts Deemed to Constitute Abandonment of Work B.E. 2569 (2026) was published in the Royal Gazette on July 27. It was issued under Sections 5 and 109(6) of the Public Procurement and Supplies Administration Act B.E. 2560 (2017).
The regulation expands the circumstances in which a state construction contractor can be treated as having abandoned work. The legal test is no longer limited to a contractor failing to sign a contract, leaving a project unfinished or otherwise breaching existing abandonment provisions.
Under the new rule, a contractor’s action or failure to act can constitute abandonment if it causes serious damage that endangers the life, physical safety or property of members of the public. The rule applies from the signing of the contract until final inspection or termination.
This means a contractor does not have to physically leave a construction site for its conduct to fall within the expanded definition.
Serious harm can trigger abandonment proceedings
The regulation covers serious consequences involving:
- danger to life;
- serious harm to the body or physical safety of people; or
- serious damage endangering public property.
The regulation itself sets the threshold in terms of serious harm to life, body or property. It does not specify traffic congestion as a separate legal ground for declaring a contractor an abandoning party.
The measure was introduced after cases in which contractors on government construction projects caused serious damage but were not necessarily subject to contract termination or proposed for inclusion on the government’s list of abandoning contractors. This allowed some firms to remain eligible to bid for state work.
Blacklisting requires a formal order
The new regulation does not mean that a contractor is automatically blacklisted immediately when an accident occurs.
Instead, qualifying conduct can be treated as abandonment under procurement law, after which the case can proceed through the formal process for declaring a contractor an abandoning party. Section 109 gives the permanent secretary for finance authority to issue such an order.
Once formally listed, a contractor can be prevented from submitting bids or entering contracts with government agencies.
When the measure was approved, the government said the exclusion period would be at least two years and up to 10 years. The contractor’s name is circulated to state agencies and published through the Comptroller General’s Department’s procurement system.
The change is intended to close a gap in the previous procurement framework, under which serious safety failures during an ongoing project did not always lead to a contractor being treated as having abandoned the work.
