Contract Law

A comprehensive and visually engaging exploration of contract law, which equips students with both conceptual knowledge and analytical skills. Mindy Chen-Wishart combines precise explanations, extensive use of diagrams, and features that support reflection and critical engagement to provide an engaging and thought-provoking account of contract law. Key Features: - Presents contract law in a visually appealing manner with diagrams to illuminate the subject and bring it to life - Provides an overview of the interests, values, and concerns that arise in each area of contract law, and full coverage of contract law's complexities and controversies - Encourages critical thinking through counterpoint and reflection boxes to engage students in the constructive process of law reform - Also available as an e-book with animated diagrams, guidance on answering the end-of-chapter questions, chapters in essence, functionality, navigation features, and links that offer extra learning support New to this edition: - Updated discussion of digital disruption to contract formation in Chapter 2 - New consideration of the Law Commission's Smart Legal Contracts: Advice to Government (2021) in Chapter 3. - Substantial new case law coverage in Chapter 4, including the three joined Supreme Court decisions in Secretary of State for DEFRA v PCSU (2024) on the presumption favouring third party enforcement under section 1(1)(b) of the 1999 Act; Armstead v RSA (2024) on contractual liability imposed on a tortfeasor; and a new discussion of whether third parties may benefit from terms implied by the Sale of Goods Act and the Consumer Rights Act 2015. - Expanded treatment of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer Act 2024 - New material on automated contracting, mistake, and rectification in Chapter 6 - Further development of the frustration doctrine in Chapter 7, including reference to the Chinese Civil Code 2020 - Updated analysis of undue influence, guarantees, interpretation, implied terms, and contractual powers, including Waller Edwards v One Savings Bank (2025), Parker Grennan v Camelot (2024), Sara & Hossein (2023), Barton v Morris (2023), and Tesco v USDAW (2024), as well as the 2024 Act's approach to 'subscription traps'. - Structural and doctrinal updates across Chapters 11-15, including a restructured Chapter 11, a new summary of illegality, a new section on the justification for termination, and updated discussions of mitigation, restitution, inadequacy of damages, injunctions, and good faith.

1 - Introduction
2 - Agreement
3 - Enforceability: consideration, promissory estoppel, formalities
4 - Privity
5 - Misrepresentation and non-disclosure
6 - Mistake
7 - Frustration
8 - Duress
9 - Unfairness: undue influence, non-commercial guarantees, unconscionable bargains
10 - Identifying and interpreting contractual terms
11 - Direct control over terms
12 - Breach of contract and termination
13 - Damages
14 - Specific and agreed remedies
15 - Good faith

Mindy Chen-Wishart is Provost’s Professor at the National University of Singapore. Until 2023, she was the Dean, and Professor of the Law of Contract at the Faculty of Law at Oxford University and a Fellow of Merton College. She remains an Emeritus Professor at both institutions and a Visiting Professor at Oxford University. She is an Editor of Chitty on Contracts (now 36th ed), of the six-book series on Studies in the Contract Laws of Asia, of which the first four have been published, and of the Elgar Handbook in the Philosophy of Contract law. The 7th edition of Contract Law has been translated into Chinese. Mindy was a member of the Advisory Group on A Restatement of the English Law of Contract and has lectured to the Judicial College of England and Wales, and the judiciary in Hong Kong and Taiwan. She has also delivered lectures in, China, India, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Germany, South Africa, Chile, Australia, and New Zealand.