Tag: Contract Law
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A Novel Exception to Privity of Contract?
(The following guest post is contributed by Shivprasad Swaminathan, who is Associate Professor at the Jindal Global Law School) The Delhi High Court’s judgment Utair Aviation v Jagson Airlines formulates a novel ‘conduct, acknowledgement and admission’ exception to privity of contract. This post argues that neither is the exception doctrinally warranted, nor its invocation in the
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2nd GNLU – ONGC International Essay Competition on International Contracts
[The following announcement is posted on behalf of the Gujarat National Law University (GNLU)] The 2nd edition of the GNLU – ONGC International Essay Competition on International Contracts is being organized for the year 2015 on the theme “Identifying and Comparing the trends in International Contract Laws and Probing the Critical Issues for Multinational Contracting
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Notice Clause: “On or as soon as reasonably practicable”
Although it is customary to use various expressions in modern commercial agreements, very few such agreements have been the subject matter of interpretation before Indian courts. Hence, it is essential to draw inspiration from jurisprudence being developed elsewhere. One such development relates to a decision rendered by the English High Court in December 2014 in
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The Bombay High Court on Implied Exclusion
The Bombay High Court has recently given an important judgment in Harkirat Singh v Rabobank. It has revisited the law on the implied exclusion of Part I of the Indian Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, which we have considered this on a number of occasions on this Blog. The point remains of great practical importance
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The Bombay High Court on Mutual Mistake, Damages and Restitution
In Rolta v MIDC, the Bombay High Court has recently considered some important questions relating to the doctrine of mutual mistake, damages for breach of contract and restitution. It is worth examining the judgment closely as it appears to depart from some well-established principles of contract law. The case arose out of a Memorandum of
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Delaware Court Ruling on Deal Conditions in the Apollo-Cooper Merger
A recent Delaware court ruling deals with matters involving the “unraveling of the Agreement and Plan of Merger (the “Merger Agreement”) by which a large Indian tire manunfacturer—[Apollo]—was to buy a large American tire company—Cooper Tire & Rubber Company (“Cooper”).” Billed as among the largest overseas acquisitions by an Indian company, Apollo was to acquire
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Revisiting penalty clauses in contract
Last year, the English Court of Appeal in Talal El Makdessi v Cavendish Square Holdings [2013] EWCA Civ 1539 considered the enforceability of penalty clauses under English contract law, and was one of the few decisions in recent times to have concluded that the clauses in question were penal and therefore unenforceable. The decision was
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The Indian Supreme Court on Lifting the Corporate Veil
In its recent judgment in Balwant Rai Saluja, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court has considered a number of important questions relating to when, if ever, it is appropriate to lift the corporate veil. Readers may recall that we had previously discussed Lord Sumption’s magisterial judgment on this point in Petrodel v Prest: Although
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The Blue Paper and the Pink Paper: The Interpretation of Options
One of the most frequently encountered issues in the practice of commercial law is the construction of contractual notice requirements: a contract that confers on one of the parties the right to do something (eg exercise an option or a break clause) would ordinarily require that party to give notice to the other party. The
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The Supreme Court on Frustration and Statutory Contracts
In its recent judgment in Mary v State of Kerala, the Supreme Court has considered the scope of section 56 of the Contract Act, 1872, and its relationship with statutory contracts. The appellant responded to an invitation to tender for the right to vend arrack in certain shops in Kalady in Kerala. Her bid of
