LL4EGE      Half Unit
Key Issues in Commercial Contract Law

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

This course explores some of the live issues in today’s law of commercial contracting, which have significant  implications not just for legal practice but for our economy and society more broadly. We will situate each issue by providing a refresher on the relevant legal framework, consider opposing views in the case law and legal commentary, and reflect on the likely path of the law’s development and its broader implications. We will consider issues such as the following:

• Contractual modification, including current controversies about the requirement of consideration and the enforceability of no-oral-modification clauses.
• Duties of good faith in contractual performance, including controls on termination rights and the exercise of contractual discretion.
• Risk allocation in contracts, including developments in the law of frustration, force majeure and exception clauses.
• Interpretation of contracts—the current state of play in this constantly evolving field.
• Exclusion clauses, including basis or no-reliance clauses and the emerging doctrine of contractual estoppel.
• Assignment of contractual rights, the permissibility of bars on assignment and their implications for receivables financing.
• Agency law, especially issues arising for those seeking to contract with or on behalf of companies.

25 hours of classes.

Essay (2000 words)

Pakistan International Airlines v Times Travel [2023] AC 101

Bates v Post Office (No. 3) [2019] EWHC 606

Canary Wharf v European Medicines Agency [2019] EWHC 335

MWB Business Exchange Centres v Rock Advertising [2017] QB 604

Wood v Capita Insurance Services [2017] AC 1173

Oral examination (100%)

The oral examination will be conducted online and managed by the Law School.