INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL LAW

International Commercial Law

Table of Content

INTRODUCTION1

CASE SCENARIO2

EQUITY & CONTRACT PRINCIPLES3

Applicable jurisdiction (UK or Netherlands) in light of good faith principle3

Contract law4

THE ADHERENCE TO CONTRACTS - ENGLAND V NETHERLANDS PERSPECTIVE:5

EU Law concerning implementation7

Misrepresentation statement8

Fraud & Insurance Contract Law - The Notion of Utmost Good Faith:8

ANALYSIS9

PART 019

PART 0211

CONCLUSION:14

REFERENCES16

International Commercial Law

INTRODUCTION

The law as laid down by the Court of Appeal goes much further than any previous decision and is unsound. To support an action of deceit it always was necessary at common law and still is both there and in Chancery to prove fraud, i.e., that the thing was done fraudulently. Fraud never has been and never will be exhaustively defined, the forms which deceit may take being so many and various. There is a negative characteristic: it must be something which an honest man would not do; not merely what a logical or clear-headed man would not do. However unbusinesslike a man may be he is not fraudulent if he acts honestly. The natural consequences of words or acts must be taken to have been intended, but not so as to impute fraud to honesty. No honest mistake, no mistake not prompted by a dishonest intention, is fraud. The shape of the mistake does not make it more or less a fraud if it is a mistake. Once establish that a man honestly intended to do his duty, the consequences cannot turn his words or acts into a fraud. There may be an obligation to see that no untrue statement is made, but the failure to meet that obligation is not fraud, if there is no dishonest intention. The statement may be inaccurate, yet if the defendants honestly—though mistakenly—believed that it substantially represented the truth, there is no fraud, and an action of deceit will not lie. The decision of the Court of Appeal is that to such a statement the law attaches a meaning which makes it fraudulent. A material misstatement may be a ground for rescinding the contract, but the consequences of fraud and of breach of contract are widely different. In an action for breach of contract the defendant must make good his words. In an action founded on fraud he must bear the whole of the consequences which have been induced by the fraudulent statement, which may be very extensive. The essence of fraud is the tricking a person into the bargain. The following exploration of the case will consider the role of justice in UK commercial contract law, focusing on the autonomy of the letter of credit and the fraud exception. In order to do this the discussion will consider the courts adherence to contracts especially ones between Kaufer & Venditore. This will illustrate the reasoning why any contract is upheld. It will then consider whether this adherence to precedent and upholding of contracts that may override principles of justice is isolated to the UK or do other nations uphold the certainty of contracts between Kaufer & Venditore; in order to do this a case study ...