Offer and Acceptance

Rule : : Contract formation requires mutual assent (offer and acceptance), consideration, and no viable defenses to contract formation.

The requirements for the Merchant Confirmation Memo is that both parties must be merchants, memo must be sent in a reasonable amount of time, the signature by the party who sent the memo must be present, and the other party has 10 days to object. Both parties in this case are merchants, which can be defined in two ways. Merchant can be a person who has extensive knowledge and background in the area, which Sara, the expert, is considered a merchant in this sense. A merchant can also be someone who deals with the good of the kind, which would be Bill. The memo was sent memo immediately after the phone conversation, which would go towards the reasonable time element. The signature of Bill was present by his letterhead identified with his business name, which constitutes a signature under the SOF. Finally, Sara did not respond to Bill’s memo at all, which under the assumption that 10 days passing would be considered an

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.

A contract is an agreement that creates obligations that are enforceable by the law. A contract can either be written or spoken. There are elements to a contract that make it valid and binding. This is defined as a clear manifestation of willingness to enter an agreement made by another person with full understanding that their assent to the bargain is an invitation and is concluded. As to whether there was an offer in this case, yes there is an offer. When the salesman offered the buyers time for a test drive and they finally chose and agreed to buy the blue car it was a clear offer.

According to Melvin (2011), consideration is most often when the offeror holds an offer open for a period. For arguments sake, and this e-mail constituted an agreement, the consideration would be the one month from Chou received the e-mail and the fax request from BTT.

However, the following are the vital steps contained in each contract. Also, without them the contract would not be considered valid. First, an offer entails a statement by one party who is willing to make a contract under certain conditions keeping in mind that it shall be accepted. Second, acceptance gives a picture of the agreement to the terms offered. According to Rogers (2012), acceptance is considered valid when, (1) it is made by an individual to whom the offer was directed, (2) it is unequivocal, and (3) it is communicated to the offeror. Third, consideration encompasses the terms of the contracts between the parties. Therefore,

This is a clear expression of a party accepting agreement to the terms of the offer.

‘Acceptance is a definite and unqualified assent to an offer, on all of its terms. Any acceptance given conditionally will not result in a legally binding agreement.’

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

Although Amy did not accept the offer from Dr Hu to purchase her medical equipment in the prescribed form of post, her acceptance is still valid. It was suggested that ‘where the offeror has prescribed a particular method of acceptance, but not in terms insisting that only acceptance in that mode shall be binding, that acceptance communicated to the offeror by any other mode which is no less advantageous to him will conclude the contract’ . Therefore suggesting that even though Amy did not respond via post as was asked by Dr Hu, the wording in Dr Hu’s email said that ‘you can respond’, can meaning that it was not specified as the only means of accepting the offer, and that other means of acceptance would be seen to form a binding agreement between the two parties. As Amy’s email was in no way less advantageous to Dr Hu it can be seen as a valid acceptance of the offer that was put to Amy. Amy sent her email of acceptance to the email that she received the email from, which conforms with Section 13A(a) of the Electronic Transactions Act 2000 (NSW) which states ‘the time of receipt of the electronic communication is the time when the electronic communication becomes capable of being retrieved by the addressee at an electronic address designated by the addressee’

The courts employ the objective test of agreement and not the subjective test because the parties are judged not by what they had in mind, but by what can be objectively implied from what they have said, written or done. In applying the objective test of agreement, the court ascribes to the parties an intention equivalent to the reasonable and objective meaning of their words or conduct and enforces

Capable of acceptance by the offeree, offeree is the person receiving the offer. A valid agreement must be constituted by Offer and Acceptance. For the responses to an offer, everyone can accept

A contract is only legal when there is an Offer and consideration is made and it is accepted

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

An offer is an expression of willingness by one party to contract on certain terms with another party with the understanding that the contract will become binding when accepted by the person to whom it is offered. An offer may be made in different ways, such as in a letter, an email, or even your behavior, so long as it conveys the basis on which the offering party is willing to contract. An offer should consist of: (1) a statement of present intent by the offering party to enter into a contract; (2) a specific proposal that is certain in its terms; and (3) a communication that identifies the person to whom the offer is made. If any of these elements are not present, an offer has not been made. (Walker, C. B., 2012)