Solicitors for contractual disputes
Whether you are a claimant or defendant, we will quickly assess the legal position, evidence and risks involved in your case. We always strive to ensure that we reach a settlement for you to avoid hefty cost liabilities.
Contract claims and disputes experience
Common situations we advise on include :-
- Late payment or failure to make payment.
- Non-performance or partial non-performance of contractual obligations.
- Technical disputes over contract wording or failure to comply with contract procedures such as the service of a break clause.
- Pre-contract misrepresentations.
- Sale and supply of goods and services disputes
- Business Agent or distributors disputes
- Warranty claims
- Exclusion and limitation clause disputes
- Employment contracts – often disputes relate to an attempt by the employer to change the employee’s employment terms, non-competition and issues over pay and bonuses.
- Supply chains disputes where a breach of 1 contract can result in issues with other contracts in the supply chain.
- Repudiation and termination of contracts
- Defence and counterclaims in contract claims.
To find out more about how our team can assist you with your commercial and contract disputes, get in touch.
What type of breach is it? Can the contract be terminated?
Perhaps the most common mistake we see with clients is that assume that a breach of contract by the other party means they can terminate the agreement as of right and recover all losses, including loss of profit claims.
The right to terminate an agreement does not arise just based on breach. The type of breach is what matters and only a breach of a fundamental term of the contract (or where the contract expressly states certain breaches give the right to terminate) will safely give the innocent party the right to terminate. It’s essential to properly assess this before considering contract termination.
Remedies for breach of contract
If your contract dispute cannot be quickly and suitably resolved, you have suffered losses and want to consider whether you can lawfully terminate, the options will generally include :
- Claiming damages – you must have suffered provable losses, which generally will not include any stress or pure economic loss. You will be required to mitigate your losses and prove that losses were foreseeable and were caused by the breach. These aspects are not always straightforward legally.
- Terminate the contract – to do so you will either need to be confident you can rely on a clear clause in the contract which gives you the right to terminate or be confident that the breach of contract is a fundamental breach i.e it goes to the heart of the contract.
- Specific performance – this is an equitable (discretionary) remedy where the court orders a party in breach to perform according to contractual obligations. An example of this would be where you exchange contracts to buy a property but the seller then refuses to complete the transaction, perhaps having received a much higher offer in the period between exchange and completion.
- Applying for an Injunction – a court order requiring a property to immediately cease an activity or to immediately take action. It will be necessary to convince the court that the application is urgent and there are severe risks to the applicant. An example would be where a business agent has been sharing highly important, confidential business data such as customer databases with competitors in breach of contract.
Our fees
We will always keep you updated on fee estimates We can deal with small to medium matters on a staged fixed fee basis, which provides you with transparency on fees.
We also deal with cases on various fee structures. Sometimes we can offer no win no fee. Other complex cases are taken on an hourly rate.
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