商业法律

The offeror may specify the acceptance in a particular way, e.g. by postal. Unless offeree stated only the specify way of the acceptance will be allowed, other faster ways such as fax or email are also feasible. In Manchester Diocesan Council of Education v Commercial and General Investments Ltd.(1970) . Council claims that whether the letter of 15 September 1964, or 7th of January 1965, is the acceptance of the tender. The Investments Ltd disagree that the lapse of time between the tender submission and its acceptance (7 January) grounds the expired offer. The court held that the arranged way of acceptance was not the only possible one, provided the other method was no less advantageous to the offeror.

-the reasoning: the letter agreement left the point of delivery up to future negotiation and was not specific to all essential terms. The letter was unenforceable agreement to agree and there was no contract.

i. Virtually instantaneous  general rule should apply (ie. contract is formed when the offeree’s acceptance is received by the offeror; per Lord Wilberforce in Brinkibon)4;

Manifestation: Acceptance of an offer requires a communication of the acceptance to the offeror from the offeree so in order to satisfy the mutual assent requirement. Pete acceptance could be inferred through his statement No problem you can let me know sometime within the next two weeks.

A cancellation can be effected if one party breaches the contract, or a termination can occur when either party lawfully ends the contract for anything other than a breach. In this case, all executor duties are discharged on both sides but in the event of a partial breach, there is still a right to seek a remedy (lectriclaw, 2012). Procedures dealing with all aspects of contracts are a part of everyday transactions and can affect every individual on one level or another.

Acceptance-This basically means that the terms of the offer have been clearly understood and agreed to through consent and assent and at no time will the terms be changed.

Rule: To determine whether the additional terms become a part of the contract there must be a definite and seasonable expression of acceptance or a written confirmation which is sent within a reasonable time to operate as an acceptance even if it contains terms additional to or different from the offer, unless, the acceptance is expressly made conditional on assent to the additional terms or different

This agreement plainly relies on upon correspondence between the gatherings and composing, talked words, activities can be. The offer is a man who makes the offeror and offeree acknowledges the offer, the individual must be. It

The offer and acceptance model is flawed- only an agreement is necessary. In order to fully comprehend this statement, we must first establish what constitutes and offer and what constitutes acceptance. “An offer is a statement by one party of willingness to enter into a contract on stated terms, provided that these terms are, in turn, accepted by the party to whom the offer is addressed”. Acceptance is “…an unqualified expression of ascent to the terms proposed by the offeror”. The “Offer and acceptance model” is based on the court’s adopt the “mirror image” rule of contractual formation. Applying the definitions stated above, we can take this to mean that there must be a clear and unequivocal offer which must be matched by an equally

Every contract is based on the concept of agreement. A contract is defined as a legal agreement consisting of exchange of promises which is recognized by law as giving rise to enforceable rights and obligations. The test of agreement is used to ensure whether or not there is a contract between the parties. Whereas the objective test ensures certainty, the same cannot be said about the subjective test of agreement. The objective test of agreement is when the court decides whether there is contract based on the outward appearance of what constitutes the contract. However the subjective test of agreement involves trying to establish whether there was a “meeting of minds” when the contract was made. That is, to try to figure out the mental state of mind of the parties involved during the time the contract was made.

The impact of Williams v Roffey Bros & Nicholls (Contractors) Ltd [1989] EWCA Civ 5 on the doctrine of consideration.

In BROGDEN v METROPOLITAN RAIL CO it was held the railway company had accepted by placing orders since the amendment of the document, and in TRENTHAM LTD v ARCHITAL LUXFER the court used the 'reasonable man' to identify whether or not there has been acceptance. Both cases seemed to have reasonable outcomes; therefore the courts had been provided with satisfactory rules to help them reach a appropriate verdict. There are various different rules regarding acceptance. There must be a communication of acceptance from the offeree to the offeror. The case of YATES BUILDING v PULLEYN deals whether there had been a prescribed acceptance or not. It was held that there was no practical difference to the offeror therefore the acceptance method was binding. However in the case of ENTORES LTD v MILES FAR EAST CORPORATION there was no prescribed acceptance, yet it was held that the contract was formed in England as that was there acceptance had been received by telex. Other rules that can be used to decide whether there has been acceptance include a waiver of communication of acceptance; silence, which isn't a valid acceptance; ignorance, generally there isn't a binding contract; and acceptance via post using the postal rule. The postal rule can often be misused, as it states that a contract has been formed as

A Contract requires several elements in order to be considered enforceable. However for the purpose of this essay we would explore one of these elements in order to effectively understand the controversial cases of Williams v Roffey Brothers and Nicholls (contractors) Ltd (1990) and Stilk v Myrick (1804). Before going any further one should briefly understand the doctrine of Consideration. Despite the vast amount of content written, the doctrine of consideration is still to this day unclear due to the inconsistency of the courts and its application of necessary rules. Consideration refers to that which the law deems as valuable in that the promisor receives from the promise that which was promised. In other words, it is the exchange of something of value between the parties in a contract. One should be mindful that in English law, every promise may not be legally enforceable; it requires the court to distinguish between are enforceable and non-enforceable obligations. This brings us to the controversial cases of Stilk v Myrick and Williams v the Roffery brothers. Many argue that that the case of Williams was wrongly decided leading to impairments in the rule initially established in Stilk v Myrick. This essay seek to analyse and critique the cases of Stilk v Myrick and Williams v Roffey Brothers and also highlight whether or not the new rule of Practical benefit lead to serious impairments in later cases.

The postal rule better understood when described using a functional example. For instance an offeror sends an offer to a second party known as the offeree via post office. According to the rule of engagement the offeror can decide to revoke or cancel the offer any time before acceptance. This in turn gives the initiator of the deal an upper hand on the bargaining table. This means that the offeree is at a greater loss since once he /she receives the offere he does not know whether the offer still stands or the offeror had already revoked it. Moreover he/she doesn’t know when he is contractually bond since he cannot establish the exact time of receipt of his acceptance.

In Privy Council decision Attorney-General of Belize v Belize Telecom (Belize thereafter), Lord Hoffmann in delivering the leading judgment, assimilated the implication of term and contractual interpretation resulting in the well-known traditional tests: “business efficacy” and “officious bystander” merely as auxiliary role in discovering the the objective intention of the contract. Even though the Belize test has long been accepted by the English and the New Zealand courts, Singapore court seems to have reservations. A great deal of debate surrounds the issue as to the roles of the Belize test to be afforded to two