Business Law: Validity of Contracts and Consumer Law in Australia

Running head: BUSINESS LAW
BUSINESS LAW
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

BUSINESS LAW1
Part A
A.1
The Supreme Court of Queensland had given the judgment or the decision in the case of
Ford & Anor v La Forrest [2001] QSC 261. The Supreme Court is considered to be the highest
authority in the State of Queensland. The only court above that would be considered to be the
High Court of Australia which is the sovereign court of the whole nation. The Supreme Court
looks after the civil and the criminal matters along with the jurisdictions over original and
appellate matters. The matters that are heard by the court are civil and criminal where the civil
matters fall under the Corporations Act, 2001 (Cth) and the criminal matters are considered to be
governed under Criminal Code Act 1995.
A.2
The case which is in question that is Ford & Anor v La Forrest [2001] QSC 261 is
considered to be a civil case as it involves contractual obligation and the offer and acceptance
has been identified in this case. The position of the acceptance is required which has thus,
created a contractual obligation between the parties of the case. The burden of proof or the onus
of establishing that the contractual obligations which have been questioned in the case has not
been created due to the acceptance of the contract and thus this onus of proof is on Adele La
Forrest who is known as Adele Morrow currently.
A.3
The main issue that has been discussed in the case was whether an email can be used as a
valid contract which would make the parties contractually bound in a contract. The provisions
from the Electronic Transaction Act, 1999 are applied in this case and the issues of offer and

BUSINESS LAW2
acceptance are taken into consideration. The issues that are related to the offer and acceptance of
the contract are discussed in this case and how it is connected through the electronic means are
considered to be established in this case.
A.4
Under the contract law there are a few fundamental principles that needs to be taken into
consideration which are also considered to be the essential elements of a valid contract. The
fundamental principles are considered to be that once parties are agreeing to form a legal relation
the parties need to have the intention to be legally bound or form a legal relationship between
each other. If there are no intention to form a legal bond between the parties then a contract
cannot be considered to be binding. The other essential element is considered to be the
consideration between the parties That means that the promises which have been agreed upon by
the parties needs to be fulfilled in order for it to be a binding contract. The other essential
element that needs to be taken into consideration would be that there needs to be an offer and
acceptance that needs to be formed. There needs to be a valid offer made by one party and the
other party needs to accept it. In order for it to be a valid contract the persons who are forming a
contract needs to be sound and should have the capacity to enter into a contract.
A.5
The related case that was used in the discussion of this particular case was that of
Vantage Systems Pty Ltd -V- Priolo Corporation Pty Ltd [2015] Wasca 21 where the court also
stated that this case was similar since there were series of emails that had contained the intention
to form legal relations and it also had incorporated all the necessary elements that were required
to form a binding contract.