Commercial Contracts

A retention of title clause can be a useful way to protect yourself in business if you supply goods on credit, as it provides you with a form of insurance if your customers fail to pay you. Depending on how the clause is drafted you will either have the right to take your goods back or to claim a stake in any money the customer has received from selling them on. Used appropriately they can be very effective.

As a general rule the courts try not to interfere in commercial contracts when a dispute arises as they rightly believe that businesses are best placed to negotiate the terms on which they will deal with each other and, save for in very limited circumstances, that they should be bound by the deal they have struck.

When entering any sort of contractual relationship it is essential to understand that, as well as those express provisions agreed orally or set out in writing, you will also be bound by a series of terms which will be automatically implied.

The Insolvency Service says that corporate insolvencies are at a four-year high and that in 2017 nearly 100,000 individuals were declared bankrupt. For businesses left out of pocket when a customer fails, the consequences can be devastating. One only needs to look at the trail of devastation caused by the recent collapse of Maplins, Carillion and Toys R Us to see this.

Picture the scene. You have just fired a rogue consultant who has set up in competition with you in breach of a restraint of trade clause in their consultancy contract. Added to this, they have taken a copy of your customer list which they have been using to tout for business. They have also been claiming falsely that you dispensed of their services unfairly because of concerns they raised about health and safety issues. What can you do? Issue a…

Have you thought about outsourcing any of your business functions to a third-party provider? If so, you are not alone; many businesses have turned to outsourcing in recent years to achieve different business objectives, including:

Commercial contracts often contain clauses which seek to limit the liability of one party if a breach of contract occurs. It is important to understand how limitation of liability clauses work and in what circumstances this type of provision may be unlikely to be enforceable in the event of a dispute.

You have been talking about the terms of a possible deal for a long time but you are not quite sure at what point your discussions turn from contract negotiations into a legally binding agreement. In this article, Mark Glenister commercial law solicitor with JPP Law explains the essentials of contract formation.

Research recently published by the Competition and Markets Authority shows that 54 per cent of businesses surveyed did not fully understand the rules on unfair terms in consumer contracts. This directly impacts on how businesses treat their customers and is particularly important in order to maintain good customer relations, brand integrity and to avoid costly mistakes which may have wide-reaching consequences for your business. Changing goods or services, increasing the price, or charging excessive cancellation fees may all constitute 'unfair'…