You have been newly hired as an executive in a commercial printing business called Printers Express Pte Ltd (the "Company"). Your supervisor, Mariam, needs your help to source for suppliers to provide ten new commercial printers for the Company which will likely cost the Company millions of dollars, and she wishes to do so via a tender process with a view to obtaining the best value for the Company.

Mariam knows that to conduct a tender process, the company would need to take out advertisements in the newspapers and appropriate industry publications, as a "Call for Tenders", to invite interested suppliers to submit a tender.

However, Mariam is unsure about the Company's obligations once the tender documents by interested suppliers have been submitted to and received by the Company. Mariam wishes to select the best supplier and form a contract with them, and reject the rest, but she is concerned that she may need to obtain more information from the selected supplier before she can decide to form a contract with them. Mariam is also wondering whether she can call up a selected supplier who has submitted a tender, discuss the points (in the tender documents) with them verbally, and form a contract verbally with the selected supplier, if talks turn out well.

She is aware that you have taken a course on Contract Law, and she is seeking your advice on the contractual aspects of this process.

Explain how and when the contract will be formed in this scenario between Print Express Pte Ltd and the selected supplier for the commercial printers. In particular, you should explain the legal significance (if any) of the advertisements to be taken out by the Company and the tender documents submitted by the interested suppliers. You should also make recommendations to Mariam so that her concerns would be addressed.

In your answer, you are expected to discuss the elements of offer and acceptance and identify how they would be satisfied in this process, but you are not required to discuss the elements of consideration and intention to create legal relations. For this question, you may assume that Mariam has the authority to act on behalf of the Company and therefore you do not need to discuss any agency law issue.

(30 marks)