Guides

The formation of a contract in English law requires, at its most elementary, an offer, an acceptance, consideration, and an intention to create legal relations. Whilst acceptance is often communicated expressly – by letter, email, or spoken word – the common law…

Actus reus guide covering conduct, omissions, causation, voluntariness, coincidence, possession and key English criminal cases.

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights is, without much competition, the most expansive and fact-sensitive provision in the Convention. It protects four overlapping but distinct interests – private life, family life, home and correspondence – and it has grown,…

Assault and battery represent two of the oldest and most fundamental offences known to the common law of England. Though the terms are frequently used interchangeably in popular discourse, they are in law distinct concepts, each protecting a different dimension of the…

Breach of contract is the central pathology of the law of obligations. Where one party to a binding agreement fails to perform, or performs defectively, or evinces an intention not to perform, the law must provide both a framework for classification and…

Consensus ad idem – literally translated from Latin as “agreement to the same thing” – is a foundational prerequisite for an enforceable contract. It captures the intuitive requirement that, for a valid and binding agreement to exist, all parties must comprehend and…

Constructive dismissal is one of the most conceptually demanding and commercially significant areas of employment law in Great Britain. This guide concerns constructive dismissal under the law of Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland). Northern Ireland has separate employment legislation, including the…

A counter offer sits at the heart of contract formation in English law. It arises when one party responds to an offer not with acceptance, but with a modified proposal of their own. Although the concept appears straightforward, its application has generated…

The maxim de minimis non curat lex – “the law does not concern itself with trifles” – is one of the most enduring principles of the common law. It expresses a fundamental proposition of legal policy: that courts should not expend their limited resources…

The duty of care is the threshold concept of the tort of negligence. Before any question of breach, causation, or remoteness can arise, the claimant must establish that the defendant owed a legal obligation to take reasonable care for the claimant’s interests.…

Economic duress is the doctrine by which English law permits a party to avoid a contract, or recover money paid, where that party’s consent was obtained by illegitimate economic pressure rather than by physical threats or coercion of the person. It occupies…

A clear, practical guide to estoppel: history, key cases from Pickard v Sears to Guest v Guest, modern developments, and continuing tensions.

Few concepts in English law carry as much weight, or occupy so pervasive a role, as foreseeability. It operates across the law of tort and the law of contract, appearing at multiple stages of legal analysis: in the establishment of a duty…

Mens rea – the “guilty mind” – is the mental element of criminal liability in the law of England and Wales. The traditional maxim actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea (an act does not make a person guilty unless the mind is…

Negligence is the dominant tort in English law. It provides the principal mechanism by which one party may recover compensation from another for loss caused by careless conduct. In its modern form, negligence requires the claimant to establish four elements: that the…

The Latin phrase novus actus interveniens – meaning “a new intervening act” – describes one of the most significant limiting principles in the law of tort and, to a lesser extent, criminal law. It refers to an event that occurs after the defendant’s wrongful…

English contract law rests on a deceptively simple proposition: a binding agreement emerges when one party makes an offer and another accepts it. This framework, often described as the cornerstone of contractual formation, has shaped commercial dealings for centuries. Yet beneath its…

The law of contract rests upon agreement. Before any binding contract can arise, one party must make an offer and the other must accept it. However, between the making of an offer and its acceptance lies a critical window during which the…

The formation of a contract in English law depends on the proper communication of acceptance. Courts have long grappled with a deceptively simple question: at what moment does an acceptance become effective? The answer matters enormously, because it determines when a binding…