The current Victorian laws on the implication of the duty of good faith in commercial contracts can be seen to run parallel with Commonwealth laws on the topic. That is, they are both still relatively unsettled and uncertain areas of law. Judicial and jurisdictional discrepancies surrounding rulings on the implied duty of good faith stemming from the fact that despite acknowledging its existence , the High Court of Australia is yet to expressly consider the matter. As such, “debate in various Australian authorities concerning the existence and content of the implied…duty of good faith and fair dealing in contractual performance and the exercise of contractual rights and powers” is commonplace. Each state’s respective trial and intermediate courts have delivered varying judgements on the scope, interpretation and application of the implied duty of good faith in a commercial context. Victoria has diverged most notably from the New South Wales judicial interpretation of the duty in that Victoria implies the duty in fact rather than law . Nonetheless, there are a number of similarities present in the states’ positions on good faith. This relates particularly to both the jurisdictions’ courts reluctance to conclude that commercial contracts are of the class which requires the universal implication of the duty of good faith . Due to the relative lack of clarity the current approach cannot be seen as the preferable one. Thus, (what is preferable). Notwithstanding the unsettled nature of the implication of the duty of good faith in the commercial context, it is an important feature of Victorian law. In Victoria, the implication of the duty of faith in a commercial contract is implied in fact. The Privy Council in BP Refinery (Westernpo... ... middle of paper ... ...as a universal ruling on the matter the divergence between the states will still be present through its differing interpretation of the implementation of the duty, whether that be in fact, followed in the Victorian jurisdiction or in law as set out in New South Wales. Due to the ambiguity there is a lack of certainty surrounding whether in certain instances commercial contracts require the implied duty of good faith to be implied which adds to the argument that the current system is not the preferred approach for the duty of good faith in commercial contracts in Victoria and nation-wide in the future. Thus, in order for Australia to step forward in this area of law it would be prudent to create one universal concept which would bring the country in line with many other nations such as the USA world-wide in the way they deal with good faith in commercial contracts.
This decision was made in good faith and cannot be conspicuously construed to have self-interests veiled in them. Further, the executive directors made an informed decision to refrain from passing this information to the board and they did believe that this would be in the best interests of the company as disclosure would have brought an end to the company’s existence much before the actual downfall. Thus this judgment met all the requisites prescribed under the provisions of Section 180 (2) of the Corporations Act, 2001 (Rawhouser, Cummings and Crane 2015). This case was the first to comprehensively lay down the business judgment defense and apply it to the facts and circumstances of a case. This defense would negate the apparent breach of the duties of the directors as prescribed by the statute and under common
Sweeney, B, O'Reilly, J & Coleman, A 2013, Law in Commerce, 5th edition, Lexis Nexis, Australia.
However prior to the modern understanding of Consumer Rights there was a understanding of Caveat Emptor – Buyer Beware –this has been a fundamental premise of consumer wellbeing prior to World War ‖ , relation to transactions, principle that the buyer purchases at his own risk in the absence of an express warranty in the contract . This common law rule assumes that buyers and sellers are in an equal bargaining position. However there has been evident change in consumer rights which have contributed to the precedence of using Caveat Emptor is no longer acceptable, apparent in the case ACCC v Hewlett Packard Australia (HP), illustrated that no longer can a company ...
Even though consumers have great protection rights in Australian Customer Law, they have to understand that this law is designed to provide consumers and sellers a fair go. Therefore, consumers also have to be aware that they will not be protected if they are careless and make unreasonable demands.
The decision in Equuscorp is significant, as it has made clear several principles that were once ambiguous under Australian law. It ratifies that restitutionary remedies are unavailable for a claim for money had and received where recovery would reduce coherence in the law. Furthermore, Equuscorp has confirmed that a bare cause of action can be assigned where the assignee has a genuine commercial interest in its enforcement.
9. Woodgate, R., Black, A., Biggs, J., Owens, D. (2003). Legal Studies for Queensland, Volume 1, ForthEdition, Legal Eagle Publications: Queensland. 10. Woodgate, R., Black, A., Biggs, J., Owens, D. (2003).
In Palgo Holdings v Gowans , the High Court considered the distinction between a security in the form of a pawn or pledge and a security in the form of a chattel mortgage. The question was whether section 6 of the Pawnbrokers and Second-hand Dealers Act 1996 (NSW) (‘the 1996 Pawnbrokers Act’) extended to a business that structured its loan agreements as chattel mortgages. In a four to one majority (Kirby J dissenting) the High Court found that chattel mortgages fell outside the ambit of section 6 of the 1996 Pawnbrokers Act. However, beyond the apparent simplicity of this decision, the reasoning of the majority raises a number of questions. Was it a “turning back to literalism” as Kirby J suggested, or was it simply a case where the court declares that parliament has missed its target?
Andrews N, Strangers to Justice No Longer: The Reversal of the Privity Rule under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 (2001) 60 The Cambridge Law Journal 353
It is commonly accepted that an estoppel is a legal doctrine which prevents a person from negating or claiming a fact due to that person’s prior conduct. The doctrine of estoppel has been applied for years and different forms of estoppel have been established. For the purpose of this essay, I will predominantly concentrate on promissory estoppel in relation to the law of contracts. This essay will be approached by discussing the issues of pre-contractual liability, consideration, reliance and the doctrine as a cause of action or defence and a slight comparison of the standpoints that various jurisdictions hold towards these issues. These arguments would conclude the uncertainty of the doctrine and thus, the difficulty and issues that would be faced with the codification of the estoppel.
The law of contract in many legal systems requires that parties should act in good faith. English law refuses to impose such a general doctrine of good faith in the field of contract law. However, despite not recognizing the principle, English contract law is still influenced by notions of good faith. As Lord Bingham affirmed, the law has developed numerous piecemeal solutions in response to problems of unfairness. This essay will seek to examine the current and future state of good faith in English contract law.
There are four sources of Law in the Australian Legal System. They are Statute Law, which is made in Parliament, Common Law and the Law of E...
While there are lots of authors who are argued in favour of this codification since two centuries, practitioners and business in the English community had always been afraid about this idea. To understand the context of this debate, I will, first, briefly explain what do we generally mean by the term ‘codification’. Then, I’ll take few points about the origins of English commercial law and describe its modern definition. Finally, I will outline the main arguments why I am against the proposition of a commercial
The plaintiff firm of surveyors bought a second-hand Rolls Royce from the defendants which developed serious defects after 2,000. It was held that the firm was acting as a consumer and that to buy in the course of a business 'the buying of cars must form at the very least an integral part of the buyer's business or a necessary incidental thereto'. It was emphasised that only in those circumstances could the buyer be said to be on equal footing with his seller in terms of bargaining strength.
HILLIARD, J. And O’SULLIVAN, J. (2012) The Law of Contract [Online] 5th Ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available from - http://books.google.co.uk/ [Accessed: 2nd January 2014]
In Krell v. Henry {1903} a plea of frustration succeeded because the court held that the common purpose for which the contact was entered into, could no longer be carried out. But in the same year for similar set of facts, the Court of Appeal decided in Herne Bay v. Hutton [1903] that the contract had not been frustrated because the "common formation of the contract" had not changed. It clearly was a policy decision which shows the reluctance of the courts to provide an escape route for a party for whom the contract ha...