ARTICLE
8 July 2026

Financing Projects Delivered Through Collaborative Delivery Models Reconciling Collaboration With Bankability

GW
Gowling WLG

Contributor

Gowling WLG is an international law firm built on the belief that the best way to serve clients is to be in tune with their world, aligned with their opportunity and ambitious for their success. Our 1,400+ legal professionals and support teams apply in-depth sector expertise to understand and support our clients’ businesses.
Alliance and IPD contracts present unique challenges for project finance lenders, as their collaborative structures—shared risk, integrated teams, and consensus governance—create tensions with traditional enforcement mechanisms. This analysis examines practical structuring responses that can bridge the gap between collaborative delivery models and bankable financing, offering calibrated solutions to address infrastructure investment demands in Canada and globally.
Canada Finance and Banking
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With contributions from Joey Suri, Project and Infrastructure Partner, Gowling WLG

Conclusion

Alliance and IPD will arguably never mirror the step-in and enforcement profile of a fixed-price EPC, and the features that make alliances effective (i.e. shared risk, integrated teams, unanimous governance, "no blame" culture) create specific challenges for lender enforcement. Contributions within integrated teams are difficult to sever; consensus governance may be incompatible with unilateral lender action; enforcement rights may sit uneasily with "no blame" principles; and attribution of default is challenging under shared-risk models. But for each core tension there are structuring responses that can materially narrow the gap. Fixed-price certainty can be achieved by deferring financial close until a firm price is established, as in the Progressive P3. Pooled risk can be buffered through enhanced equity commitments and layered cost overrun facilities. Impaired step-in can be managed by confining lender enforcement to the SPV finance layer, as in the Alliance PPP. The absence of contractual remedies can be offset by government contingent support and bankable operational-phase revenue. No single instrument resolves all four tensions, but a calibrated combination, tailored to project-specific circumstances, can produce a workable result.

As infrastructure investment demands grow in Canada and globally, the value of combining collaborative delivery with private finance will increase. The structures examined here represent practical approaches to that convergence, and their continued development can help address the infrastructure challenges ahead.

See more

  1. Introduction
  2. Why does financing remain necessary under collaborative delivery?
  3. What is bankability? 
  4. What are the collaborative delivery models? 
  5. Core principles of collaborative delivery models 
  6. Core principles of traditional project finance 
  7. The issues between collaborative delivery models and traditional project finance 
  8. Available solutions and potential structuring 
  9. Conclusion

Read the original article on GowlingWLG.com

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.

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