Adjudication is the legal process by which an arbiter or judge reviews evidence and argumentation, including legal reasoning set forth by opposing parties or litigants, to come to a decision which determines rights and obligations between the parties involved.
Breach of contract is a legal cause of action and a type of civil wrong, in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is not honored by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or interference with the other party's performance. Breach occurs when a party to a contract fails to fulfill its obligation(s), whether partially or wholly, as described in the contract, or communicates an intent to fail the obligation or otherwise appears not to be able to perform its obligation under the contract. Where there is breach of contract, the resulting damages have to be paid to the aggrieved party by the party breaching the contract.
The parol evidence rule is a rule in common law jurisdictions limiting the kinds of evidence parties to a contract dispute can introduce when trying to determine the specific terms of a contract and precluding parties who have reduced their agreement to a final written document from later introducing other evidence, such as the content of oral discussions from earlier in the negotiation process, as evidence of a different intent as to the terms of the contract. The rule provides that "extrinsic evidence is inadmissible to vary a written contract". The term "parol" derives from the Anglo-Norman French parol or parole, meaning "word of mouth" or "verbal", and in medieval times referred to oral pleadings in a court case.
Frustration of purpose, in law, is a defense to enforcement of a contract. Frustration of purpose occurs when an unforeseen event undermines a party's principal purpose for entering into a contract such that the performance of the contract is radically different from performance of the contract that was originally contemplated by both parties, and both parties knew of the principal purpose at the time the contract was made. Despite frequently arising as a result of government action, any third party or even nature can frustrate a contracting party's primary purpose for entering into the contract. The concept is also called commercial frustration.
Exclusion clauses and limitation clauses are terms in a contract which seek to restrict the rights of the parties to the contract.
Fundamental breach of contract, is a controversial concept within the common law of contract. The doctrine was, in particular, nurtured by Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls from 1962 to 1982, but it did not find favour with the House of Lords.
The law of contract in Australia is similar to other Anglo-American common law jurisdictions.
Photo Production Ltd v Securicor Transport Ltd[1980] UKHL 2 is an English contract law case decided by the House of Lords on construction of a contract and the doctrine of fundamental breach.
A contractual term is "any provision forming part of a contract". Each term gives rise to a contractual obligation, the breach of which may give rise to litigation. Not all terms are stated expressly and some terms carry less legal gravity as they are peripheral to the objectives of the contract.
English contract law is the body of law that regulates legally binding agreements in England and Wales. With its roots in the lex mercatoria and the activism of the judiciary during the Industrial Revolution, it shares a heritage with countries across the Commonwealth, from membership in the European Union, continuing membership in Unidroit, and to a lesser extent the United States. Any agreement that is enforceable in court is a contract. A contract is a voluntary obligation, contrasting to the duty to not violate others rights in tort or unjust enrichment. English law places a high value on ensuring people have truly consented to the deals that bind them in court, so long as they comply with statutory and human rights.
Contractual terms in English law is a topic which deals with four main issues.
Investors Compensation Scheme Ltd. v West Bromwich Building Society[1997] UKHL 28 is a frequently-cited English contract law case which laid down that a contextual approach must be taken to the interpretation of contracts.
Interpreting contracts in English law is an area of English contract law, which concerns how the courts decide what an agreement means. It is settled law that the process is based on the objective view of a reasonable person, given the context in which the contracting parties made their agreement. This approach marks a break with previous a more rigid modes of interpretation before the 1970s, where courts paid closer attention to the formal expression of the parties' intentions and took more of a literal view of what they had said.
In English law, implied terms are default rules for contracts on points where the terms which contracting parties expressly choose are silent, or mandatory rules which operate to override terms that the parties may have themselves chosen. The purpose of implied terms is often to supplement a contractual agreement in the interest of making the deal effective for the purpose of business, to achieve fairness between the parties or to relieve hardship.
Attorney General of Belize v Belize Telecom Ltd[2009] UKPC 10 is a judicial decision of the Privy Council in relation to contract law, company law and constitutional law. It concerns the correct method for interpretation and implication of terms into a company's articles of association.
Frustration is an English contract law doctrine that acts as a device to set aside contracts where an unforeseen event either renders contractual obligations impossible, or radically changes the party's principal purpose for entering into the contract. Historically, there had been no way of setting aside an impossible contract after formation; it was not until 1863, and the case of Taylor v Caldwell, that the beginnings of the doctrine of frustration were established. Whilst the doctrine has seen expansion from its inception, it is still narrow in application; Lord Roskill stated that "the doctrine is not lightly to be invoked to relieve contracting parties of the normal consequences of imprudent commercial bargains."
Chartbrook Ltd v Persimmon Homes Ltd[2009] UKHL 38 is an English contract law case concerning interpretation of contracts. It creates a so-called "red ink" rule, that there is no limit to verbal rearrangement that the court may deploy to give a commercial sensible meaning when construing a contract in its bargaining context. It also, importantly, reaffirmed the rule of English law, that pre-contractual negotiations were ordinarily inadmissible when construing a contract.
Marks and Spencer plc v BNP Paribas Securities Services Trust Company (Jersey) Ltd [2015] UKSC 72 is an English contract law case, concerning the implication of terms in commercial contracts, and business tenancies agreed between multinational corporations.
BP Refinery (Westernport) Pty Ltd v Shire of Hastings is a leading judgment of the Privy Council which summarised the test for whether a term should implied 'in fact' into a contract, to give effect to the intentions of the contracting parties. While the formulation of the test is not without criticism, it is usually accepted as setting out the tests for the implication of a term into a contract.
Codelfa Construction Pty Ltd v State Rail Authority of New South Wales, ("Codelfa") is a widely cited Australian contract law case, which serves as authority for the modern approach to contractual construction. The case greatly influenced the development of the Eastern Suburbs railway line. In terms of contract law, the case addresses questions of frustration, construction and the parol evidence rule. The case diverged from the well established English approach regarding the use of extrinsic evidence in contractual interpretation.
