Business Law - Questions - Assignment Example

When an offer is made to the offeree, he can either accept or put down the offer made to him, if he accepts the offer, this means that the second element of the contract recognized as acceptance have been completed. If a contract has to be recognized as valid, it should contain the third element recognized as consideration. Consideration is the term assigned to a promise or a factor on which bargaining takes place, consideration is offered by the offerror and whether to accept the consideration or reject it or bargain on it is entirely in the hands of the offeree.

Another important element of a contract is intention; the people involved in creation of a legal contract should have the intention of creating a legal contract and not just an agreement that has not been legally created. The last element of a contract is the certainty of the contract, this means that the contract should be concise and clear in nature so it can be enforced. Increase in the use of internet to conduct transaction between the sellers and the buyers gave way for the creation of a distance contract.

A distance contract is referred to a contract in which the buyer and the seller or the parties involved in the contract have never physically been in each other’s presence since the start of the contract till the end of the contract. For examples: a distance contract is created when parties are involved in selling and purchasing of goods and services over the internet through different means such as email, telephone calls and faxes. In this kind of contract, the seller or merchandiser is required to provide any information to the purchaser that might influence his purchasing decision, once the to be purchaser has accepted the information, the seller is required to provide the same details in written form, the merchandise has to be delivered to the purchaser within thirty days and if the purchaser wants he can cancel the contract with seven days of the date of delivery.

For example, in Thornton v. Shoe Parking case, the customer experienced injury in the parking area because of negligence caused by the defendant, the customer received the ticket of car parking after he had installed his money in the ticket machine, the terms and conditions that applied to the car parking area were stated on the ticket and the customer was not informed about the terms before he purchased the ticket, thus, the term of no exclusion of liability in case of personal injuries caused due to negligence was rejected as according to the distance contract, all information is to be provided before the purchase decision is made (Beale, 1990, p.337). Expressed terms refer to those stipulations and circumstances that are mentioned in the contact at the most specific level and are accepted by the parties involved in the creation of that particular contract, these terms can be in verbal, as well as written, form.

For example, in the case of Bannerman V White, the purchaser had entered a contract with the seller on the terms that the hops he was purchasing were to be used to prepare beer and should not be treated with sulphur, the seller had assured him that they were not treated with sulphur, but they were actually treated with sulphur when the purchaser received them, thus, the seller was in breach of contract as the contract clearly stated that hops