Contractual Duties: Performance, Breach, Termination and Remedies 4e

Contractual Duties: Performance, Breach, Termination and Remedies provides guidance from three leading contract law academics on the duties at play in a contract that is in dispute: its performance, breach, termination and the remedies available.

Main features:

• Part 1 covers rescission: general principles; possible grounds for (including misrepresentation, mistake and non-disclosure; duress, undue pressure and influence; impaired capacity, unconscionable conduct and breaches of fiduciary duty); bars to; and consequences of rescission are fully considered.

• Part 2 introduces the different types of breach and the terminology that governs them and explains strict and non-strict obligations.

• Part 3 deals with discharge by impossibility, illegality or frustration.

• Part 4 discusses remedies available, beginning with the right to sue for a debt and the limits to such an action, going on to cover damages, and then dealing in detail with specific enforcement.

It covers the structure of the law of damages, laying out the measures of award. In addition, it explains financial loss, covering the various ways of expressing the loss, via concepts such as expectation, reliance, consequential damage, ‘cost of cure’ and balance sheet calculation. There is also a chapter dedicated to agreed damages.

New to the 4th edition:
The law of contract and contract remedies has evolved significantly since the last 2020 edition. Substantial case law updates, including numerous Supreme Court decisions, across all four key areas of the book have been considered and analysed. See in particular:

Part 1 (Rescission)

• Nature Resorts Ltd v First Citizens Bank Ltd[2022] UKPC 10 on undue influence
• Moses v Moses[2022] UKPC 42 on rights of third parties
• Times Travel (UK) Ltd v Pakistan International Airlines Corp[2021] UKSC 40 and The Debenture Trust Corp plc v Ukraine [2023] UKSC 1 on duress
• Part 2 (Breach and Performance)
• Cases of note on renunciation; repudiation; identifying conditions; innominate terms; the process of terminating for breach; and the entire obligation rule are included.
• Part 3 (Frustration)
• On force majeure clauses: Delta Petroleum v British Virgin Islands Electricity[2020] UKPC 23; Mur Shipping v RTI [2022] EWCA Civ 1406
• On the doctrine of frustration: Dayah v Bushloe Street Surgery[2020] EWHC 1375 (QB), Bank of New York Mellon (International) Ltd v Cine-UK Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 1021
• Part 4 (Remedies)
• Interesting developments on damages for late payment of debts (Sagicor Jamaica v Seaton[2022] UKPC 48);
• On the relation between recoverable financial loss and the insolvency laws (Stanford International v HSBC[2022] UKSC 34); and
• On the remedies for failure to pay cryptocurrencies like Ether or Bitcoin.