Business Law and Ethics: Contract Law and English Legal System

This essay discusses the concepts of contract law and the English legal system in the context of business law and ethics. It explores the elements of a legally binding contract, the court system in England, and various remedies for breach of contract.

Business Law and Ethics

Abstract
Business law is the part of legal system in which all elements that regulate business and
activities of business are described. Contract law is also one of the law in business law and this
report have discussed about contract law. This report also discussed about English court and
legal system and to enhance clarity and understanding some of the cases were also discussed in
this report.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
Contract Law and Blue Prints of the Contract.............................................................................3
Court system in relation to the English legal system...................................................................5
Advise to Hilary concerned with binding Contract and their existence between her and
Eleanor, Amy and Olivia.............................................................................................................6
Various remedies available to the parties....................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Business Law and Ethics are those frameworks that bind business legally as well as
ethically. Business law includes different factors that create legal responsibilities on a business
whereas business ethics are those frameworks that create basis for right and wrong conduct in
context of a business. There are several laws that are required to be followed by business and
among them contract law is one of the important law. This essay will discuss about contract law,
Contract law basically is law in which terms and regulations of contract are determined and these
regulations are binding on parties involved in a contract. Non-adherence to these regulations can
put one party in situation that is subject to legal proceedings. This involves all elements that
make a contract valid and invalid and only valid contracts are subject to legal proceedings further
English court and legal system will also be discussed in this report.
TASK
Contract Law and Blue Prints of the Contract
Contract law is a body of law that govern contractual relationships. Contractual
relationship forms when one party and person makes an offer and this is accepted by other party
and person by communicating their assets or by performing terms of offer (Smits, 2017).
Contract law works best when contract is performed and there is no need of recourse to the court
and this also include that parties involved in contract are aware of their rights and duties
concerned with contract. According to contract law a contract become legally binding when-
 There is an agreement
 There is an intention to create a contract
 There is a consideration
These three elements are important for a legally binding contract. This also involve that
in order to be legally binding the contract does not require to be legally binding (Andenas and
Della Negra, 2017). However in relation with sale of property it is important to be in writing and
involve all the terms that are agreed by all the parties.

Elements of Contract Law are-
Offer – this means that one party has to make an offer
Acceptance – other party accepts the offer
Consideration- This means that both the parties provides consideration to each other. this is in
form of-
 Promise to pay Money
 Promise to do something or a promise to not to do something
 This also involve a promise to provide something of value
Intentions to be legally bound- This is concerned with intentions of both the parties to be
legally bound by the agreement
Contractual capacity of parties- This means that parties are legal entities recognised by law,
this means companies, partnerships and individuals of age 18 or above.
For contract to be valid it is important that contract is having all these elements.
Offer - This is concerned with making an offer
Acceptance- This is related to accepting the offer under the contract
Consideration- This means that each party of the contract. Considerations can be-
 Promise to pay money
 Promise to do something or not to do something
 Promise of providing something of value
Intentions to be legally bound- This means that parties involved in the contract should be
having intentions to be legally bound in contract (Cartwright, 2016).

Contractual capacity of the parties in contract- This means that parties creating the contract
need to be legal entities recognised by law, limited liability partnership and individual of 18 or
above age.
Vitiating Factors
Factors because of which a contract can be declared void. These factors are-
 Misrepresentation
 Law of mistake
 Non est Factum
This means that any of the party can make a plea that allows party to escape out of the
performance in an agreement (MacMillan, 2016).
 Illegality
Court system in relation to the English legal system
English legal system which comprises of civil law and criminal law and thus have
different and own court of each of the branch of law. In English legal system courts are of two
types that are criminal court and civil court and these courts are responsible for administration of
justice. These courts are further supported administratively by Her Majesty's Courts and
Tribunals Service (Murphy and Burton, 2020). Contract related cases and justice because of
being of a civil nature is appealed in civil court. In court it is expected that parties of the contract
understand the terms and conditions of the contract along with what legal effect does it make. In
court it is considered that parties of a contract is best judge regarding the contract and fairness of
the contract. In court decision regarding contract are mainly based on fairness and legality of
different elements of the contract that is offer and acceptance and other elements. Concerned
with the cases of Hilary it is advisable that in first case where Hilary made an offer, but
somehow the offer was no accepted by other party. In this a valid offer was made but this was
not accepted by the offeree. In second case Hilary made an offer to Amy but she also did not
accepted the offer. This is how no contract gets formed in first two cases. However, in relation
with third case in which Hilary made an offer to a specified legal person who was the first person

to come at the gallery, this offer was subsequently accepted by the Olivia (Hanretty, 2020). This
acceptance however was not confirmed to Hilary and this is why a contract also is not formed in
this case. This was according to law can be termed as revoke of the offer.
Advise to Hilary concerned with binding Contract and their existence between her and Eleanor,
Amy and Olivia
The case involved and discussed three different cases. Discussion and advise to Hilary on
existence of the contract is as follows-
Hilary and Eleanor
This is first case in which Hilary advertised a printing press in a specialist trade journal
for £15,000. However followed by this Eleanor wrote to Hilary offering the buy it for £10,000.
This is first instance where the contract becomes invalid (Cartwright, 2016). This means that a
contract is formed when conditions of the offer remain unchanged while accepting the offer. In
other words, the acceptance needs to be on same terms of offer. Followed by this the offer is later
rejected by Eleanor and this also becomes another reason for considering that there is no contract
has been formed between Hilary and Eleanor.
Hilary and Amy
This is another case in which Hilary make an offer to sale an office computer for £1,000.
Subsequently Amy agrees to the offer at the price at which Hilary offers to sell. But followed by
this before she can communicate the acceptance to Hilary, Amy cancels the acceptance using
other mediums. In this case as per postal rules contract and acceptance become effective when it
is placed in postal box. Concerned with this fax is equally effective and this is why the fax that
firstly is received by Hilary includes rejection to the offer of her.
Hilary and Olivia
This is another case in which Hilary decided to have a grand summer sale at her art
gallery. Subsequently she She put large notices in the windows of the gallery stating that a
valuable painting by Trumpeter, a famous artist, would be available for only £1 together with a
free signed print of another Trumpeter painting (Andenas and Della Negra, 2017). This was an
advertisement and however an advertisement does not become a contract as they are considered

as invitation to treat and this was the case with Hilary. In this case before Olivia can
communicate acceptance to Hilary she told her that the painting is no longer for the sale. In this
case revocation also took place. Revocation refers to cancelling the offer by offeror before
acceptance take place. This is how in this case no contract has been formed and exists in between
Hilary and Olivia.
Various remedies available to the parties
There are several remedies available in relation with contract law and breach of contract.
This means that when a promise is broken by any of parties of the contract this is concerned as
breach of contract. Some of the remedies that are available for the breach of contract is available
are as follow-
Recession of Contract
This is concerned with a situation in which one of the parties does not fulfil obligation in
this case another party can rescind the contract and can refuse to perform obligations that are
expected to be performed by the another party.
Damages in Contract Law
This is one of the remedy for contract law in which damages are an award of money to
compensate the innocent party. Purpose of this is to place the injured party in the position they
would have been in had in performing the contract.
Heads of Bargains
This includes claims for different types of loss. This includes loss of bargain, reliance
loss, inconvenience and speculative damages.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above discussion it can be concluded that contract law which is a part of
civil law involves different regulations because of which a contract can be justified as valid. This
report and essay also discussed about contract and different conditions that make a contract valid
and legally enforceable. Validity and legal enforceability of the contract is mainly based on

different regulations concerned with different elements such as offer and acceptance of the
contract. This discussion suggests different regulations regarding different parties of the contract.
This report also discussed about some of the elements of English legal system in reference to the
court system. The English court and legal system is divided in two parts that are criminal court
and civil court. Linking this with contract law it is part of civil court and legal system. Followed
by this some of the cases and remedies were also discussed.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Andenas, M. and Della Negra, F., 2017. Between contract law and financial regulation: towards
the Europeanisation of general contract law. European Business Law Review. 28(2017).
pp.499-521.
Cartwright, J., 2016. Contract law: An introduction to the English law of contract for the civil
lawyer. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Hanretty, C., 2020. Courts in the United Kingdom. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics.
MacMillan, C., 2016. The impact of brexit upon English contract law. King's Law
Journal. 27(3). pp.420-430.
Murphy, R. and Burton, F., 2020. English Legal System. Routledge.
Smits, J.M. ed., 2017. Contract law: a comparative introduction. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Twigg-Flesner, C. ed., 2016. Research handbook on EU consumer and contract law. Edward
Elgar Publishing.
Yeung, H. and Huang, F., 2016. Certainty Over Clemency: English Contract Law in the Face of
Financial Crisis. In The Effects of Financial Crises on the Binding Force of Contracts-
Renegotiation, Rescission or Revision (pp. 285-305). Springer, Cham.