Stephens on Contractual Indemnities

Indemnities have become commonplace in modern commercial contracts, with a modern commercial contract often containing numerous indemnities and using familiar expressions such as “save and hold harmless”. However, few lawyers can say with confidence what such expressions mean or even what the advantage of an indemnity is over a straight breach of warranty claim. Along with their popularity in modern drafting, cases are starting to come along at an increasing rate and the courts are having to address exactly what indemnities are and what they mean in practice. Indeed, from these same cases it can be seen what the pitfalls are for the lawyer involved in drafting or negotiating indemnities in commercial contracts.

While cases on indemnities go back centuries, this book focuses on the recent cases to draw out the practical implications for lawyers. There are many cases on the subject and the decisions are not always easy to reconcile, but this book tries to draw out the lessons that can be learned from the cases to demystify the indemnity and explain its practical implications. It is strange that the indemnity has become so popular while at the same time there is a dearth of academic or practical literature on the subject. This book attempts to state in a coherent fashion a modern “law of indemnities” for the modern commercial lawyer.