Facts: Foley owned a gas station. He sold a piece of land attached to the filling station to Classique Coaches to use for their business on the condition that they purchase all of their petrol from Foley for as long as he can supply it. There was no indication of price in the contract, however there was a clause stating that any arguments should be settled by arbitration. After three years, a lawyer for Classique Coaches claimed that because there was no stated price, the contract is not valid, at which point Classique Coaches began purchasing gas from other suppliers, and Foley sued for breach.

Held: As the arbitrators could imply a reasonable price for the purchase of the petrol, Classique breached the contract by going to another supplier

Facts: The parties agreed on a number of things to do with a tenancy agreement, but there was no commencement date specified

Held: The court held that the contract was unenforceable because a commencement date for a tenancy is an essential part of the agreement

Held: The court held that the term ‘of fair specification’ did provide certainty as it clearly meant something to the parties as they had contracted with each other for a long time. Thus, in some circumstances even vague terms can amount to certainty/enforceability

Facts: There was a phrase in the contract that said “we are in agreement that the usual conditions of the acceptance apply”. Is this phrase too uncertain?

Held: There is a principle that if there is an uncertaint or meaningless phrase in the contract, if it can be deleted without it having an effect on the working of the contract then it will be ignored by the court. Thus, the court ignored the phrase here because there had been no “usual conditions”

Facts: Scammell was going to supply Ouston a van on terms of a hire purchase

Held: The court was uncertain as to what the exact terms of the hire purchase were (e.g. they were uncertain of its duration) so there could not be an enforceable contract

Facts: The tenant of a property had an option to purchase ownership of the land at a price agreed by his own appointed surveyor and a surveyor chosen by the landlord. He decided to do this, but the landlord never appointed his own surveyor claiming the clause was too vague as no price for the purchase had been specified

Held: It was held that the clause was not too vage as there was ‘machinery’ existing to deal with the undetermined price

Facts: The parties had an oral agreement and also agreed they would have a written agreement at some point

Held: The oral agreement was provisional which would be superseded by the written contract, so there was therefore an enforceable contract

Facts: This case involved an agreement between party A and party B. They agreed party A will not negotiate with any other parties, and only negotiate with party B

Held: The court held that this agreement was not enforceable. There is no duty to negotiate in English Contract Law as it is not practicable