Category Archives: Contract
‘Recreation and Risk: The Book, The Website, The Links to Liability Waivers’
From time to time, liability waivers and exculpatory agreements have been a topic for the Blog. There was plenty of interest in the subject in connection with the OceanGate disaster in 2023. We also weighed in on the subject in connection with McKamey Manor. Last year, William Gordon Childs published Recreation and Risk, which provides […]
Stanescu and Damsa, ‘Research Methodologies for Consumer Contracts in the 21st Century New Wines, Old Bottles?’
ABSTRACT This chapter aims to provide an overview of some of the significant challenges posed by digitalisation to some of the fundamental concepts of contract law, such as offer and acceptance, consent, etc. It also outlines the research methods that will enable researchers to study consumer contracts in the digital age. Stanescu, Catalin Gabriel and […]
Douglas Brodie, ‘The Demise of the “Voluntarist Exclusion Zone?”’
ABSTRACT In Secretary of State for the Environment v PCSU [2024] UKSC 41 the Supreme Court had to consider whether a trade union was entitled to sue on a provision derived from a collective agreement by virtue of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999. The relevance of the presumption in s 179 of […]
Wayne Barnes, ‘Defending Form Contract Consent’
ABSTRACT The issue of standard form contracts has bedeviled Contracts scholars for a century. The basic problem has long been known. Contract is supposed to be a quintessentially consensual activity, whereby both parties are operating with full knowledge and comprehension of the array of terms and conditions being negotiated and agreed to. But by employing […]
Bar-Gill, Ben-Shahar and Marotta-Wurgler, ‘A Companion Guide to the Restatement of Consumer Contracts’
ABSTRACT This short Essay, written by the Reporters of the recently published Restatement of Consumer Contracts, is intended as a companion to the Restatement. It highlights three areas, where the Reporters’ ambition was only partially reflected in the final version of the Restatement. The first was to ground the restated rules and principles in a […]
Jonathan Chu, ‘The place of deemed fulfilment of condition’
EXTRACT Where, on the face of a contract, the existence of a debt is conditional on the occurrence of a particular fact, and that fact has not occurred, because the person who promised payment has prevented it from occurring, does the debt arise nevertheless on the notion that the condition is then to be deemed […]
Eleanor Rowan, ‘Economic abuse, the bank, and the devil in the detail: One Savings Bank plc v Catherine Waller-Edwards [2024] EWCA Civ 302′
EXTRACT In One Savings Bank plc v Catherine Waller-Edwards, the Court of Appeal considered – for the first time – whether banks are put on constructive notice to potential undue influence in joint benefit remortgage/suretyship hybrid transactions. At a time where there is an increasing awareness of economic abuse as a form of domestic abuse, […]
Mateusz Grochowski, ‘Shadow Contract Law in the Platform Economy’
ABSTRACT The emergence of the platform economy represents a significant development in early 21st-century capitalism and is leading to a concentration of various forms of power within a small number of market entities. This concentration, accompanied by limited oversight, includes the unique ability of platforms to unilaterally establish and enforce rules governing horizontal contracts among […]
Patrizia Giampieri, ‘AI-Powered Contracts: a Critical Analysis’
ABSTRACT Artificial Intelligence (AI) applied to the legal domain is gaining ground. AI is argued to be particularly helpful with labour-intensive activities and repetitive tasks. Amongst the various AI solutions, ChatGPT has gathered momentum and its acclaimed advantages are, amongst others, document generation and contract review. This paper wishes to assess the effectiveness of two […]
Collins and Freedman, ‘Employment Status: The Death Throes of the Tests of Mutuality of Obligation and Control’
ABSTRACT The UK Supreme Court in HMRC v Professional Game Match Officials Ltd answered two contentious issues about the identification of contracts of employment for the purpose of tax law. The first rejected the claim that ‘mutuality of obligation’ is a necessary feature of contracts of employment unless it is interpreted to mean the same […]