ABSTRACT
A major disagreement has recently emerged concerning the most common boilerplate provision in commercial contracts. According to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in MWB Business Exchange Centres Ltd v Rock Advertising Ltd, compliance with a clause that requires writing for variation of the contract is mandatory. A non-compliant agreement is ineffective. This is a departure from the conventional view that the parties may vary the contract without complying with the clause. This paper contends that clauses which regulate the form of contracts by way of ‘variation’ state agreed rules, rather than mandatory rules, and that matters such as the scope and operation of such clauses are issues of intention which must be resolved by construction.
€
JW Carter, John Eldridge and Elisabeth Peden, ‘Agreed Writing Requirements for Contract Variation’ (2020) 36 Journal of Contract Law 107.
First posted 2020-05-15 05:50:58
Leave a Reply