Business Law and Ethics Case Studies

This assignment provides two case studies, one involving unfair contract terms and another regarding a salesperson's breach of commitment. The report concludes by discussing the importance of understanding legal concepts such as offer and invitation to treat, and the need for businesses to have trustworthy employees who can make sound decisions.

BUSINESS
LAW

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
CASE 1............................................................................................................................................1
CASE 2............................................................................................................................................2
CASE 3............................................................................................................................................3
CASE 4............................................................................................................................................3
CASE 5............................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
.......................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Business law include all the laws that are essential for developing and running of the
business. It covers all the information of starting, running, modifying if required in a business.
The report consists of five specific cases in which issues regarding the laws i.e. breaching,
cheating, misrepresenting has taken place (Sugai,Koede and Ciferri, 2010). For each case, it
covers various points I.e. the area of the law, key issues consisted in the study, applicable law for
solving the issue, application of the following law to the case so that solutions can be retrieved
and the main advise to the parties by which they can be able to consider these facts in future. It
can help them in being more aware about these laws and their applications.
CASE 1
The case comes under unfair means which acts as a regulation of common law. It is
because of the grandmother, Betty who tried to exclude from her responsibility of transferring
the property to her granddaughter. The issues which have been identified by the case study are
as following. Jennifer has been breached by her grandmother for making a fake contract with
her. The contract stated that if Jennifer would leave her job and everything in Adelaide and will
move to Mount Gambier with her grandmother, she would transfer all the property to her (Weiss,
2014).
When Jennifer moved to Mount Gambier,she left her mum dad, boyfriend and even her
job as a psychologist but afterwards Betty refused to be on her words. She did not even got the
same job in Mount Gambier and had assigned a job of a waitress in a cafe. Betty herself first told
Jennifer that she will accept the transfer of property when she will leave everything in Adelaide
and shift to Mount Gambier with her. Jennifer did according to Betty but Betty breached her by
refusing the contract. The following issues determines the case of unfair means here.
The protection can be utilised from the common law, the Unfair Contract Terms Act
1997 and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999 (Sekaran and Bougie,
2016). This law comes as an Act of Parliament of the UK and it states the regulation of the
contracts by not permitting the operations and legality of a few contract terms. The protection
from this law comes in two forms. One is that if the court considers that if the condition is being
incorporated in the contract. Second, it can consider if any clause in it is covering the loss in
question.
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The law if applied to the case can help Jennifer to understand that she can file a case in
court for what is happened with her. Although there is no written document or contract but still
she can file a case for the same. She can talk to her grandmother that this breaching can put her
in a lot of troubles (Zikmun and et.al, 2013). She may also suggest her to take the action now by
transferring the property now so that Jennifer did not have to file a court case for Betty. After
that also, if Betty refuses to do so, Jennifer can file a case for her and tell her grandmother that it
can cause her in a lot of troubles. She can be filed with a big amount also. Also, may have to
spend a specific time in prison for cheating. Jennifer should have to teach a lesson to her
grandmother and she herself should be more aware of such issues in future.
CASE 2
The area of law according to the situation in report is Invitation to treat. When Sanche
has already offered Richard his 1974 Holden Monaro car for 60000$, he should have stuck to his
words.. Richard accept his offer at the condition of buying his car at 55000$. Later he changed
his mind of buying the same as according to Sanche, i.e. for 60000$. He sends an e-mail to
Sanche that he is willing to pay the same amount he wants to (De George, 2011). Sanche checks
his messages in which Richard has told about paying 55000$, but does not checked his e-mail
further. At the same time, Sanche was negotiating with another person, Bradley about selling his
car. It is wrong because when he was dealing with one person for selling his car, he should not
have done negotiations with some other person because it is a cheating for the previous one.
Sanchey finally gave his car to Bradley for 60000$. After selling him the car, he read the
e-mail of Richard about purchasing the car at the same amount he wants i.e. 60000$. This report
can be analysed by evaluating offer and invitation to treat. With respect to an offer, the offerer
should be confident of his intention to sell the particulars and to be bound with that. An offer is
quite different from the invitation to treat. Offer can lead to binding of contract but an invitation
can not. It is because an invitation to treat is merely an invitation.
It is a concept within contract law (Ostas, 2010). Here, in this case scenario, the fault is of
both the parties. When Sanchey has told Richard for selling his car, he should not negotiate with
any other person at that time. It questions the commitment of Sanchey. Richard's fault here is
that he should have made his mind at once only. May be Sanchey took the decision of selling the
car to Bradley because he had read Richard's earlier message that he is willing to buy at 55000$.
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The all issue may be created because of this reason only but Sanchey should have stuck to his
commitment with Richard. He should not have negotiated with others at the same time when he
has alreadygiven a commitment to Richard. Richard should have ensure that in future he should
make his mind at once and also he have to confront to Sanchey about his dis-commitment.
CASE 3
The following case of report comes under misrepresentation. When Kevin, the owner of
antiques explained Ravi that he have to sell the dining table for not less than 7000$, he should
have followed the same (Ward, 2016). Ravi placed an advertisement for the dining table for
selling it at 7000$. Theresa when talked about the table to Ravi for selling it at 6500$, he
accepted. After a while when the table was delivered to her, she saw a large scratch on it and told
ravi to cancel the order. Ravi refused to do so and told her that it is her problem. He cannot do
anything now as he is not the owner. This also can be treated as a cheating. If Ravi had already
told Theresa that the owner of the table is someone else and he is just a worker there, she could
have talked to the owner itself. Then she was also able to claim that the table has a scratch and it
has to be replaced. Ravi misrepresented the scene.
The culprit in this case is Ravi who presented it wrong to Theresa. All the confusion
occurred because of the cheating Ravi did (Carroll and Buchholtz, 2014). After selling the table,
he should not have refused to replace it. When he took the responsibility of selling it, he should
also have guts to replace it if it has some issues. Theresa can file a case on Ravi for
misrepresenting, due to which this all scene happened. She should have told Ravi that what will
be the conclusion if she will file a case of cheating and misrepresenting for him . He have to pay
a large amount as a fine or compensation for what he has done. Also, he may have to leave his
job for everything he has done with Theresa.
CASE 4
This scene comes under Copyright law. Trevor is a music lover and composes music of
its own on a software called Sibelius. He after composing, sends it to his distributor which
further sells it. He often before releasing, composes the same to his friends. One of his friends,
Declan has a habit of stealing his notes. He often goes home and composes a piece of the notes
that seems quite identical with that of Trevor (Nichols, 2012). Without considering the friendship
between the two, Declan composes identical tones and then sends it to the distributor for selling
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purpose. He has made a large amount of money because of that. He did not even considered the
fact that Trevor has trust on his friends that he makes them listen the composition even before
the release. Declan showed complete dishonesty with Trevor and did not even considered the
bond of trust and friendship between them. This whole situation comes under the Copyright
policy law.
Copyright law includes various types of work issues as it can be musical, dramatical,
artistic etc. Trevor can file a case for Declan in the court as he had stolen the composition of
Trevor and had also made a large amount of money with that. Copying the work of an another
personality is strictly restricted in the law and as Declan has breached the law, he can have to pay
civil penalties. If the original composer has registered his work with USCO i.e. United States
Copyright Office, then he can sue the one who has copyrighted his work. He may have to go
under many penalties and also have to pay the losses (Chane and Martin, 2013).
CASE 5
This law considers the act of Discharge by Breach. Clare had a very successful business of
hairdressing in Adelaide. She took at least five years to build up that business. After a while, she
decided to sell her business and step into a contract of sales with Maddie. Maddie included a
clause in the contract that clearly states that Clare is not allowed to open any other business in
Adelaide for about 10 years. After working with the similar contract for about one year, she
decided to open another business, so she opened a new cafe. She accompanied by many of her
old customers. It made Maddie tensed that how Clare has breached the contract with him. The
breach of contract enables the innocent party the access and right to repudiate the contract.
The innocent party is allowed to claim any damages and the loss. When Maddie had
cleared this thing in the starting of the contract, then Clare should not have done this. This
breaching of contract may lead her to pay penalties. She may have to pay a huge loss. With that,
she may be terminated from working in Adelaide (Posner, 2014). This can prove very bitter for
Clare as she has cheated his business member by starting a new business, which was strictly
restricted in the contract. Maddie should have to be aware in future that he is appointing
members that are trustworthy and can not lead to any mistake like this because it however effects
the whole business. Although the party have to pay a loss but it somewhere effects the
reputation of the company as well.
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CONCLUSION
The report concluded various cases and each case has its several issues. The first case
concluded that how by unfair means, Jennifer was being cheated. The Unfair Contract Terms
1999 act can help her getting out of the situation. The second case included how Sanche did not
followed his own commitment and sold the car to another person with whom he was negotiating
already. The offer and invitation to treat can help him understand the difference between offering
an invitation and one's own commitment. By this way each case had different issues and for
every issue there are laws which can help the innocent parties to stay protected from any type of
breaching, cheating and stealing. These laws are very beneficial for the employees to stay
protected from these frauds and faults.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Posner, R. A., 2014. Economic analysis of law. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.
Chaney, L. and Martin, J., 2013. Intercultural business communication. Pearson Higher Ed.
Nichols, P. M., 2012. The business case for complying with bribery laws.American Business
Law Journal. 49(2). pp.325-368.
Carroll, A. and Buchholtz, A., 2014. Business and society: Ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder
management. Nelson Education.
Ward, J., 2016. Keeping the family business healthy: How to plan for continuing growth,
profitability, and family leadership. Springer.
Ostas, D. T., 2010. Civil disobedience in a business context: Examining the social obligation to
obey inane laws. American Business Law Journal. 47(2). pp.291-312.
De George, R. T., 2011. Business ethics. Pearson Education India.
Sekaran, U. and Bougie, R., 2016. Research methods for business: A skill building approach.
John Wiley & Sons.
Weiss, J. W., 2014. Business ethics: A stakeholder and issues management approach. Berrett-
Koehler Publishers.
Carroll, A. B. and Shabana, K. M., 2010. The business case for corporate social responsibility: A
review of concepts, research and practice.International journal of management reviews. 12(1).
pp.85-105.
Sugai, P., Koeder, M. and Ciferri, L., 2010. The six immutable laws of mobile business. John
Wiley & Sons.
Zikmund, W. G. and et.al., 2013. Business research methods. Cengage Learning.
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