Category Archives: Contract
Jan Willem Verbeke, ‘Cooperation in Construction Projects. What Does Contract Law Have to Offer?’
ABSTRACT Due to the inherent complexity of a construction project (in particular the long duration, the large number of parties involved, the complexity of the subject matter and the uncertainty of environmental factors), cooperation and communication between all parties involved is required to complete the construction project. This article briefly examines how the duty to […]
Michael Pratt, ‘Why Are Deposits Deducted from Damages?’
ABSTRACT The deposit is a very old common law device for securing the performance of a contract. Ubiquitous in real estate transactions, deposits are also routinely used in other commercial contexts. Despite its antiquity, the law of deposits has not worked itself entirely free of difficulty. In this paper I examine a seldom-noticed puzzle at […]
Meg Jones, ‘The Character of Consent: The History of Cookies and The Future of Technology Policy’
ABSTRACT The rich, untold origin story of the ubiquitous web cookie – what’s wrong with it, why it’s being retired, and how we can do better. Consent pop-ups continually ask us to download cookies to our computers, but is this all-too-familiar form of privacy protection effective? No, Meg Leta Jones explains in The Character of […]
Frederick Amara, ‘Revisiting Contractual Penalty Clauses: A Critical Analysis of Implied Terms and Breach in Cavendish Square Holding BV v Talal El Makdessi and ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis in Modern Contract Law’
ABSTRACT The Supreme Court’s rulings in Cavendish Square Holding BV v Talal El Makdessi and ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis represent a transformative moment in UK contract law, particularly concerning the enforceability of penalty clauses and non-compete agreements. These conjoined cases addressed critical legal principles surrounding the balance between contractual obligations and legitimate business interests. In […]
Williams Iheme, ‘Defects of English Rules of Contractual Interpretation and Their Challenges for African Businesses’
ABSTRACT The Law Society of England and Wales, as well as English politicians and judges, claim that English (contract) law is admirable, settled and predictable, and non-English legal systems are ‘laxer systems’ whose judges are not as exceptionally knowledgeable as English judges. These claims of legal superiority attract foreign litigants such as African businesspeople to […]
Stephen Ware, ‘Contracting Away Constitutional Rights in the United States: Adhesive Consent (Blanket Assent) to Arbitration and other Agreements’
ABSTRACT Law in the United States provides a constitutional right to a jury trial not only in criminal cases but also in many civil cases. However, parties often unknowingly trade away their civil jury rights in so-called ‘adhesion’ contracts the form contracts businesses present on a take-it-or-leave-it basis to consumers, workers, and others who typically […]
‘What if Producers Paid Us to Read Fine Print?’
Kelli Alces Williams, ‘Market Testing Boilerplate’, 74 Syracuse Law Review 229 (2024). One of my favorite cases from the perspective of consumer bargaining power is Boucher v Riner, which involved both my third-greatest physical fear (jumping out of a perfectly good flying airplane a few thousand feet above the ground) and my first-greatest jurisprudential concept […]
Tina Stephen, ‘Federal trade commission’s rule on non-compete ban: Relevance for a common law jurisdiction – India’
ABSTRACT Countries have been pondering about the use and legality of non-compete agreement for many years. Lack of regulatory clarity on these covenants has allowed companies to use these contracts with impunity. These covenants not only restrict the employees from joining a competitor but also refrain them from having a competing business of their own. […]
‘Clause for celebration: the effectiveness of entire agreement provisions’
Entire agreement clauses are very common. This recent decision confirms their effectiveness: JMW Solicitors v Injury Lawyers 4U. Some firms of solicitors, including JMW, set up a company, Injury Lawyers 4U. The original shareholders’ agreement was amended by a supplemental deed to change the price of participation depending on whether you were a founding shareholder […]
‘Contractual interpretation: eSIMplified’
In Kigen v NOR Capital, the High Court was asked to interpret a clause to determine whether a ‘Success Fee’ was payable by one party to the other. In a useful illustration of how to apply the established principles of contractual interpretation, the court found no Success Fee was payable … (more) [A&O Shearman, 9 […]