Legal Analysis of a Business Contract: A Case Study

This case study, prepared for a business law assignment, provides an in-depth analysis of contract law principles. It begins with an overview of the nature of statutes, case laws, and their application in criminal and civil cases, along with an explanation of the UK court system's operation. The core of the study focuses on Seed Ltd.'s legal position, examining contract creation, the distinctions between offers and invitations to treat, and the implications of electronic media in contract formation. The study also addresses factors influencing the intention to create legal relationships, conditions for contract termination, and circumstances that render a contract unenforceable. The analysis covers key aspects of contract law, including offer and acceptance, consideration, and legal obligations, providing a comprehensive understanding of the legal framework governing business contracts. The conclusion affirms the validity of the contract between Seed Ltd. and Fast Print Ltd., emphasizing compliance with contract law requirements.

Case study Business Law

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
PROJECT 1......................................................................................................................................1
1. Nature of statute and application of criminal and civil cases and operation of court system..1
2. Report on Seed's legal position................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Business law refers to a branch of legal system that contains rules and regulations relating
to each commercial and civil activities. The present study shows a report of business legal
adviser for advising clients about contract law. It shows a process of creating law and difference
between offer and invitation to treat. Further, it also provides information about position of offer
and acceptance at the time of performing contract with electronic media. In addition, present
assignment also provides information about factors affecting intention to create legal relationship
and conditions for terminating the contract along with various circumstances under which
contract can become unenforceable.
PROJECT 1
Legal London Ltd.
To,
The senior manager,
From,
Business legal advisor
Subject: For advising client on applicability of contract law.
1. Nature of statute and application of criminal and civil cases and operation of court system
Nature of statute and case law
Statutes are the bunch of laws, rules and regulations applicable to each person of the
country including individuals, justice, corporations, and all other parties to the contract. In this
regard, it can be said that the statutes are universally applicable in all over the UK. Statutes are
also can be seen as a guidance for processing any activity in the country.
On the other hand, common law of UK represents the case laws (Campbell, Mulcahy
and Wheeler, 2017). These laws refer to a combination of all the previous judgments provided
by justice of higher judicial authorities. As per the clause of constitution of UK, each lower
judicial authorities are required to provide their judgments on the basis of previous judgments.
They do not have right to provide any judgment having overriding effect over the higher
judicial's judgments. In this regard, the case laws are applicable to the lower divisional courts
only. They are guidelines to be followed by the lower divisional courts.
Applicability of case laws and statutes over civil and criminal cases:
Statutes contains law relating to each activity of the country including commercial, civil,
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criminal activities, judicial activities, etc. in this order, they provide a guidance dictionary to the
court on the basis of which they exercise their actions. Further, they need to provide judgments
on the basis of legal rights and duties of the parties as mentioned in the statutes. Moreover, at
the time of solving any civil case, or any case relating to the criminal activities, they need to
taken into account all the law of equity and laws applicable to the case as well.
Further, they also need to consider all the previous judgments of similar cases. In this
order, both statutes and civil laws are being applied to the civil and criminal cases.
Due to the dispute relating to the conditions of contract, the present case scenario is
related to the contract law of the country. Rules relating to the civil laws are applicable to the
court.
Operation of court system
The court performs its functions in a set hierarchy. This hierarchy can be termed as the
court system which is as follows:
 Magistrate's court: Majority of the criminal cases are being operated in the
magistrate's court. This court operates those criminal cases that are related to hybrid or
summary offenses (how the court system operates, 2018). Cases relating to family
proceedings, domestic violence, etc. are being majorly operated in these courts.
 Crown court: Justice of crown courts are the judges of high courts and circuits as well.
Cases, like rape, homicides, serious Physical harms, etc. are being operated in the
crown courts. Further, judgments provided by the magistrate's courts can be appealed in
the crown court.
 High court: High courts refers to one of the principle courts of UK. In London, there
are 3 divisions of high court namely; the Queen's Bench division, Chancery division and
Family division. These divisions have been created as to divide range of cases among
various categories and diversify the workings of high court.
 Supreme court: Supreme courts are the most superior authority of justice. Decisions
delivered by the supreme courts are being treated as the final decisions. Unsatisfactory
decisions of high courts can be further appealed in the supreme court. These can not be
applied in any other judicial authority.
In this order the court performs its functions and provide appropriate judgments over
both civil and criminal cases.
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2. Report on Seed's legal position
Contract:
Contract can be defined as a written or oral agreement containing offer and acceptance
for doing some activity for a specific consideration (Giancaspro, 2017). between two or more
parties with an intention to create a legal obligation among them. In other words, it can be said
that an agreement enforceable by law can be termed as contract.
Creation of contract:
In order to create a contract, the basic requirement is presence of offer and acceptance.
As per the contract act 1990 Of UK, each contract is needed to involve the following
elements:
 There must an offer by one of the party.
 The offer is needed to be accepted.
 There must be a fixed consideration for both parties.
 The intention to develop legal obligation is required by both the parties.
Moreover, as per the legal system of UK, a contract must contain invitation to offer and
treat Further, for the purpose of creating a contract, as in the present case scenario, there is an
online contract, the agreement between Seed and Prints Fast Ltd. needs to fulfill all the
requirements of an offline contract (Formation of contracts, 2019). In addition, the offer or
acceptance or both can be made through any of the online media channel like message, email,
fax, etc.
Difference between offer and an invitation to treat
Although, in general term, both offer and invitation to treat can be seen as the similar
terms. But in legal terms, both are different from each other. As per the clause mentioned in the
contract law, an offer is a proposal for to ask someone to do something. On the other hand,
invitation to treat refers to invite a party to make an offer.
Further, difference between offer and invitation to offer can be analyzed as under:
Basis Offer Invitation to treat
Definition As per the legal system, an offer
can be defined as expressing
feelings by one party to another to
Invitation to treat or invitation to
offer refers to expressing feeling to
another as to invite the person to
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do something or to deny the party
from doing any specific activity
(Beale and et.al., 2018).
make an offer of doing or denying
doing something.
Objectives Objective behind an offer is to
enter into a contract.
The key objective behind invitation
to treat is to receive an offer from
party and negotiate the clauses of
contract to be created.
Result Acceptance of an offer would result
in creation of a binding contract
between parties.
Acceptance of invitation top treat
will not result in creation of binding
contract. Rather, it would result in
making an offer.
In the present case scenario, there was an invitation to treat between march to may 2018
in terms of succession of negotiation. which was accepted by Print Fast Ltd. And make an offer
to the Seed store Ltd.
Offer and acceptance position when buying using electronic media
In order to create a legally binding contract, there must be an offer that have been
accepted by the another party to the contract. In the present case scenario, each term of the
contract has been developed in the form of electronic media. In this condition, the offer is being
created when the acceptance for the contract has been created and communicated to the offerer
as well.
Further, in case, the party making offer wants to dismiss the offer, the latter of dismiss-
ion needs to be made before offer is being accepted by the another party or letter of acceptance
is being dispatched (Taylor and Taylor, 2017). Further, for dismissing an acceptance, the
acceptance needed to be communicated before the latter of acceptance reaches to the offering
party.
Factors showing intention to create legal business relationship
For the purpose of determining the legal boundation of the contract, it is required to
check the intention of parties. Courts takes the above presumptions for the purpose of
determining the legal relationship between parties:
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 Parties to the agreement whether it is domestic or legal, have not been developed for
binding parties legally.
 Parties who have created a business agreement are being presumed to be legally bound
towards the contract.
In this regard, it can be analysed that each business agreements are being presumed to
be legally bound by the parties to the contract. In the present case, as Seed ltd. And print Ltd,
have created a business agreement, it would be presumed to be bound by both the parties to the
contract.
Conditions for terminating the contract
A valid contract remains bound over each party to the contract until and unless it has
been terminated by whatever reason. Although, contract law has provided some conditions that
would result in termination of contract. Some of the major conditions are as under:
 Death: If any of the party to the contract dies, before completion of contract, the
contract would be automatically terminated (Chalkidis, Androutsopoulos and Michos,
2017). After this condition, other parties are no longer being bound towards the
contractual term.
 Lapsing of time: If the contract contains any specific time till which the contract would
be valid, after lapsing of that time, the contract automatically gets terminated.
 Revocation of offer or acceptance: Revocation can be termed as dismissal of offer or
acceptance. In case, offer or acceptance have been revoked by any of the party,as per the
clauses mentioned in the contract law, it would be termed as a terminated contract.
If any of the above condition appears before completion of the contract, it would get
terminated automatically. Further, as none of the above condition is present in the given case
scenario, the contract between Seed Ltd. And Fast Print Ltd. Can not be termed as a terminated
contract.
Circumstances that makes a contract unenforceable
As per the rules of contract law, if any of the following circumstances occurs, the
contract would be unenforceable:
 Contract with a minor person.
 Contract made with the mentally incapable person (Freedland and et.al., 2016)(Brown,
2018).
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 Contract containing unrealistic terms and conditions
 contract made through undue influence of any person.
CONCLUSION
From the analysis of the above rules, conditions and clauses of contract law, it can be
concluded that Seed Ltd. And Fast print Ltd. There is a legally valid contract between Seed Ltd.
And Fast print Ltd. They have made contract electronic media. Further, the contract fulfills each
condition required for the valid contract. Moreover, claim of Seed Ltd. Is not valid as in the
contract through electronic media, no formal signature is being needed. In addition, the contract
does not contain any condition about approval of board of directors. Therefore, the contract can
not be invalidate on the following ground. And hence, Seed Ltd, is liable to pay sum to Fast
print Ltd. As a consideration to the contract.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Beale, H. and et.al., 2018. Cases, materials and text on contract law. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Campbell, D., Mulcahy, L. and Wheeler, S. eds., 2017. Changing Concepts of Contract: Essays
in Honour of Ian Macneil. Springer.
Giancaspro, M., 2017. Is a ‘smart contract’really a smart idea? Insights from a legal
perspective. Computer law & security review. 33(6). pp.825-835.
Taylor, R. and Taylor, D., 2017. Contract Law Directions. oxford university press.
Chalkidis, I., Androutsopoulos, I. and Michos, A., 2017, June. Extracting contract elements.
In Proceedings of the 16th edition of the International Conference on Articial Intelligence
and Law (pp. 19-28). ACM.
Freedland, M. and et.al., 2016. The contract of employment. Oxford University Press.
Brown, A., 2018. The Absence of the ‘Surrogacy Contract’from Judicial Constructions of
Surrogacy. feminists@ law. 8(1).
Online
Formation of contracts. 2019. [Online] Available through : <https://www.out-law.com/page-
396>
how the court system operates. 2018 [Online] Available through :
<https://www.rocketlawyer.co.uk/article/how-to-form-a-valid-contract.rl>
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