Exclusion Clauses and Unfair Contract Terms, 14th Edition

Exclusion Clauses and Unfair Contract Terms examines, in a detailed, practical, and incisive manner, this important area of contract law. It provides guidance to the practitioner on drafting and using exclusion clauses effectively within the formative phase of a contract. Additionally, it offers commentary on the possibility of challenging an exclusion clause. The text deals with exclusion clauses and unfair contract terms in the context of both commercial and consumer contracts, considering the legal tests which are applied to determine whether the exclusion clause has been successfully incorporated, how it should be interpreted, and the extent to which it might be invalidated at Common Law and under statute.

Key features:

• Considers the ways in which exclusion clauses are controlled by the judiciary and regulated by legislation
• Examines unlawful, void and ineffective exclusion clauses
• Explains in a straightforward and practical manner how to draft exclusion clauses that are lawful, valid and effective
• Deals with exclusion clauses and unfair contract terms in the context of both commercial and consumer contracts
• Provides wholesale review of the recent case law
• Analyses the courts’ interpretation of the meaning of “written standard terms” under the Unfair Contract terms Act
• Discusses how the courts are adjusting the process of construing exclusion clauses so as to harmonise this topic with the general principles of interpreting written contracts.

New to this edition:

• Sixty new cases have been added
• The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 and its impact (on the latter see Ch.11). This is a rapidly evolving field of contract law
• A chapter on force majeure clauses has been added (Ch.8)
• Treatment of the topic of unfair consumer clauses has been consolidated in a single chapter (Ch.11)
• The principles of construction are examined in chapter three under two headings: general principles, which are common to all types of written contracts and clauses, and those principles which are “special” (see section 2 of chapter three), in the sense that they have been traditionally rooted in the Common Law’s attempt to temper the excesses of contractual draftsmen, or at least to lean in favour of the innocent party when confronted by an exclusion clause which lacks perfect clarity.