The Law Of Unfair Terms Of Consumer Contracts

There are two instances where unconscionability comes into question by reference to cases bought forward under statute. The first being that under section 20 and the next being under section 21 both from the Australian Consumer Law (ACL). To understand these sections, both equity and the scope of unconscionability need to be examined.

The particular focus of this essay is on how terms are implied. This is central because the courts intervene and impose implied terms when they believe that in addition to the terms the parties have expressly agreed on, other terms must be implied into the contract. Gillies argued that the courts have become more interventionist in protecting the rights of contracting parties thereby encroaching upon the notion of freedom of contract. The doctrine of freedom of contract is a prevailing philosophy which upholds the idea that parties to a contract should be at liberty to agree on their own terms without the interference of the courts or legislature. Implied terms can be viewed as a technique of construction or interpretation of contracts. It has been argued that the courts are interfering too much in their approach to determine and interpret the terms of a contract. The aim of this essay is to explore this argument further and in doing so consider whether freedom of contract is lost due to courts imposing implied terms. The essay will outline how the common law implies terms. The final part of the essay will examine whether Parliament, by means of a statute, or terms implied by custom restrict freedom in a contract. An overall conclusion on the issue will be reached.

20) With regard to consideration in a sales contract, the UCC differs from the common law in that

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is an administer of the competition and Consumer Act (CCA) which is to prevent collusion among the firms and to prevent the individual firm which break the market equilibrium with their market power. Well competitive market would deliver efficiency costs, faster innovation, prevention of unduly concentrated markets, business freedom, wealth distribution, and enhancement of international competitiveness. Therefore, the ACCC is playing a crucial role in Australia, and their activities can be divided into four categories; (1) the policies for anti-competitive conduct and anti-competitive practices, (2) the mergers policy, (3) the consumer protection policy, and (4) four pillars policy.

The Australian Consumer Law (ACL) was established to protect consumers in any legal trading activities in Australia. A set of guarantees has also been introduced for those consumers who are acquiring goods and services from Australian suppliers, importers or manufacturers. The guarantees are intended to ensure that consumers will receive the goods or services they have paid for. If they have problems with the products and services they bought, they are entitled for remedies, such as repair, replacement, and refund.

A consumer defined in the Fair Trading Act 1987 (NSW) is ‘any person who acquires goods and services from a supplier’. The Industrial Revolution resulted in most goods being mass produced; often with little or no contact between manufacturer and consumer. This meant that the law moved from the laissez-faire approach (leaving things to take their own course) to consumer affairs and notion of caveat emptor (Latin for Let buyer beware). Due to the never ending failure of laissez-failure approach, a number of legal and non-legal measures were introduced which had different levels of effectiveness in achieving justice for consumers. Government regulation such as Trade Practises Act which includes Advertising and Marketing regulation, Fair

In contract law, under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), for businesses to complete the commercial transactions, negotiable instruments must be used. According to the law, the negotiable instruments are written or signed promises to pay a specified amount of money per the contract terms at a particular time (Miller & Hollowell, 2014). However, it must be determined if the instrument is, in fact, a negotiable instrument or nonnegotiable. According to UCC, the negotiable instrument can fall under two different categorize of which include orders to pay and promise to pay.

This essay will review the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (as amended) (‘CPUTs’) to assess how they are responsible for the operation of the Internal Market and consider whether the CPUTs have accomplished its objective of consumer protection. This essay will first explain the Internal Market and the significance of regulation and then proceed to demonstrate how the CPUTs enable the Internal Market to function properly and its protection of consumers.

Working with contracts requires having an excellent comprehension of the two main bodies of law: Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and the common law of contracts, which oversees the policies and purposes of contracts. Understanding the differences between the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and the common law, will result in a huge difference in the outcome of a contract dispute. These disputes include "collecting punitive damages, discharge or modify a contract, being able to sue under a breach of contract, and whether there was actually a legally recognized contract at all." (Denton, 2015, par. 1).

code addressing most aspects of commercial law, is generally viewed as one of the most

Studmaster Pty Ltd was a landlord that owned a shopping complex in Bourke Street, Melbourne. Mrs Tran operated the “Vietnamese Lunch Box” outlet in the food court. She had little ability to speak or read English, which the representatives for Studmaster knew about. Studmaster proposed a three year renewal of her lease at $48,000 per annum plus GST for the first year and CPI increments in the second and third years.

This essay will analyse the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (‘CRA 2015’) as it is a significant element of the government’s reform of consumer law in the UK. The Act has been lauded as an immense upheaval of consumer law due to the integration of eight existing pieces of legislation into one. The complicated regulations regarding goods and services that consumers and businesses struggle to comprehend will no longer apply under the Act.

Contractual agreements are supposed to be consensual, and freely entered into by the parties involved. Therefore, ‘before a court enforces a relationship as a contract, the courts must have a reasonably certain basis in fact to justify binding the parties to each other.’ (St. John’s Law Scholarship Repository, no date). Resolution of whether a contract was intended to be legally binding is not determined by what the parties themselves thought or intended. Rather, a more objective stance is taken by the courts. This is known as the objective theory of contract, and essentially enables ‘the courts to look at external evidence (what the parties said and did at the time)’ (Poole, 2006, p. 34), as to objectively indicate the parties’ intentions

Introduction: In this assignment I will go over a few legal terms in relation to contract law. I will also talk about a few precedents that help explain the law.

For the reasons described above, Court’s insistence on high level of transparency is insufficient to guarantee protection for consumers and in fact may lessen it. However, the inclination that non-transparent terms are not unfair per se is supported. Consumers’ indifference to the existence of transparency might well be transposed to the lack of it. Since consumers suffer from the behavioural flaws described above, they cannot take full use of disclosure mechanisms. The proposition that transparency should not legitimize unfair terms is also welcomed, because in spite of accepting them, consumers might have not read or understood them.