ABSTRACT
The appropriate test for identifying a restraint of trade has long troubled the courts. In Peninsula Securities Ltd v Dunnes Stores, the United Kingdom Supreme Court overruled a decision of the House of Lords that had stood for more than fifty years and adopted the ‘trading society’ test which had been put forward in a minority judgment of the House of Lords decision. Not long after this notable development, in Quantum Actuarial v Quantum Advisory, the English Court of Appeal found that the trading society test was not comprehensive as it could not apply to novel or unique provisions. The trading society test is also open to criticism for being vague and unhelpful. It is, however, supported here for its broad perspective, flexibility and synergy with the competing policies at stake: freedom to contract and freedom to trade.
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Booysen, Sandra, What is a Restraint of Trade? – Peninsula Securities Ltd v Dunnes Stores (Bangor) Ltd (Northern Ireland); Quantum Actuarial LLP v Quantum Advisory Ltd (March 2022). Singapore Journal of Legal Studies, March 2022, pp 202-212.
First posted 2022-07-26 08:30:07
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