Contracting by email may be swift and convenient but, as a High Court case showed, such informality has serious pitfalls, including the ever-present risk that important messages may be misaddressed or end up in junk folders. A subcontractor engaged to perform enabling works in respect
England’s peerless reputation as a forum where commercial disputes are resolved without fear or favour means that English law and English jurisdiction clauses are commonplace in contracts signed around the world. In a case on point, the High Court ruled that a high value dispute
The aim of commercial arbitrators to achieve speedy and final resolution of disputes would be undermined if the parties were not required to put all their cards on the table at an early stage of the process. The High Court made that point in analysing
The powerful public interest in rigorous judicial enforcement of commercial arbitration decisions was, in a High Court case, sufficient to outweigh a foreign government’s plea that an award against it of almost $6.6 billion was hugely inflated and penal. The case concerned a gas supply
Major infrastructure projects commonly involve long contractual chains and, with so many professionals and building firms involved, discerning where responsibility lies for defects can be a serious headache. One case showed, however, that specialist construction industry judges are more than capable of rising to such
Where commercial contracts come to nothing, it can be tricky to discern exactly how, when, and by whom they were terminated. As a High Court case concerning the aborted sale of a $30 million business jet showed, the resolution of such issues can have major
Judges frequently apply commercial common sense in interpreting contracts – but that does not mean that they will employ hindsight to relieve one side or the other from the consequences of what turns out to be a bad deal. The High Court made that point
One would have thought that sophisticated financial professionals engaged in high value deals would have the sense to get their agreements recorded in writing by a professional. However, that is sadly not universal practice and a High Court case illustrated the kind of disputes to
Negotiations for the sale of high-value goods are often tense and fast-moving and it can be difficult to piece together after the event exactly what was said and done. The Court of Appeal, however, confronted just such a task in upholding an art dealer’s claim
Commercial transactions which involve transferring large sums of money through the banking system are sadly vulnerable to fraud. In a guideline decision in the context of a substantial commodities trade, the High Court considered where losses arising from such dishonesty should fall. A buyer contracted
