Category Archives: Contract
Melody Hadfield, ‘Post-Breach Events, Itemisation and the Avoided Loss Rule’
ABSTRACT In English law, the following equation is used to compute damages awards: (a) loss sustained in consequence of the breach of duty (‘prima facie loss’) minus (b) benefits obtained as a result of the breach of duty = (c) net loss. This paper explores the manner in which prima facie loss is defined. It […]
Adebayo and Bolanta, ‘The Ghost in Contract: Artificial Intelligence, Misrepresentation and the Allocation of Contractual Liability’
ABSTRACT Artificial intelligence is moving from the background of commercial life into the conversation itself. Today, companies make use of generative and agentic systems to answer customers’ questions, draft contract terms, negotiate prices, recommend products and, in certain cases, carry out transactions with almost no human involvement. Problems arise, however, when the machine produces something […]
‘Show some consideration, please’
It is rare for a contract to be found to lack consideration. However, in a recent jurisdiction challenge, the High Court held that there was no good arguable case that a security letter was supported by consideration. Denning lent USD 1 million to Arcem under a loan agreement, with repayment obligations guaranteed by Main. The […]
Orit Gan, ‘Redefining Consent to Contract’
ABSTRACT This Article examines contractual consent through an epistemic lens, bridging contract law scholarship and epistemic theory. It demonstrates that judicial decisions frequently misunderstand or deny marginalized parties’ experiences of consent. This exclusion, the Article argues, constitutes epistemic injustice, specifically hermeneutical injustice, as these parties are wronged as knowers and excluded from shaping the legal […]
Andrew Burrows, ‘The Relationship between Contract and Unjust Enrichment’
… The relationship between the law of contract and the law of unjust enrichment has long perplexed courts and commentators. In considering the relationship afresh, I want to consider several leading cases including a Supreme Court case in which, along with Lord Leggatt, I dissented, namely Barton v Morris. It is helpful to start with […]
deHaan, Wang, Zhou and Zhou, ‘Non-Disclosure Agreements and the Market for Talent’
ABSTRACT We examine whether state laws restricting employers’ use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) improve labor-market efficiency. Employers use NDAs to suppress negative workplace information to appear more attractive to job seekers. However, widespread suppression degrades the labor-market information environment, potentially creating a market failure that disincentivizes workplace improvements and worsens firms’ recruiting outcomes. Using a […]
Peter Benson, ‘Consideration Without Economic Duress: Reframing the Analysis of Contractual Modifications’
ABSTRACT Prevailing approaches to the contractual enforceability of modifications revise or dispense with the requirement of consideration and invoke economic duress to rule out unfair, inequitable, or bad faith modifications. Enforceability turns effectively on the absence of economic duress. But economic duress is a doctrine of avoidance. It does not answer the contractually prior step […]
Philip Sales, ‘The Role of Equity in the Law of Contract’
INTRODUCTION The interaction of contract law and Equity is a complex subject which can be approached from a number of perspectives. For the purposes of my lecture this evening I will be highlighting three of these: first, the moral visions which Equity and the law of contract draw on, respectively; secondly, the different functions they […]
Call for proposals: 19th Annual International Conference on Contracts (KCON XIX), Case Western Reserve University, 19-20 March 2027
KCON strives to be an open community for supporting and enriching scholarship. It welcomes presentations on projects at every level of development, including recently published articles, drafts, works-in-progress, preliminary ideas, and thought experiments. It provides an unparalleled opportunity to engage with colleagues and potential collaborators and mentors in the field. Junior scholars are especially encouraged […]
‘Chitty on Contracts: A Family Affair’
Many of us owe a lot to our dads, and Joseph Chitty Jr was no exception. This year, Chitty’s most famous work, now known as Chitty on Contracts, celebrated its 200th anniversary. But without Chitty’s father, Joseph Chitty Sr, this venerable contract law treatise might never have come into existence. Born in 1775, Chitty Sr […]