There can be little doubt that Australian contract law today exists as a discrete and rich subject which merits serious study. This volume seeks to examine key questions and debates in respect of this body of law. Although appropriate attention is paid to developments in English law – which none would deny continues to be an important source of law for Australia – the focus is nonetheless thoroughly antipodean.
Along with its focus on Australia, this volume is avowedly concerned with debates and issues which are of contemporary importance. It seeks to canvass a range of topics that are of significance today, and which are likely to continue to be of special relevance in the coming years.
The book is divided into three parts. The first focuses upon issues relating to the content of the primary and secondary contractual rights that contracting parties may have. Particular attention is given to the law relating to contractual money awards which, in recent decades, has given rise to extensive debate. The second part of the book focuses upon issues that have emerged at the intersection of contract doctrine and other bodies of principle. The third part of the book focuses on certain issues relating to specific types of contracts.
Australian Contract Law in the 21st Century features contributions from leading scholars and practitioners and contains a foreword by Professor The Hon William Gummow AC. It is essential reading for Australian lawyers drafting and litigating contracts, for those teaching the subject, and those who are called upon to adjudicate contractual disputes.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Professor The Hon William Gummow AC
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Table of Cases
Table of Statutes
Introduction – John Eldridge and Timothy Pilkington
Part 1
Chapter 1 – Implied terms: constriction instead of construction? – Adam Kramer
Chapter 2 – The “performance interest” in contract Law – Katy Barnett
Chapter 3 – Negotiating Damages in the UK Supreme Court – Andrew Burrows
Chapter 4 – Limiting the recovery of damages for breach of contract in Australia: some important unresolved questions – David Winterton
Part 2
Chapter 5 – The contraction of restitution in the twenty-first century – Eli Ball
Chapter 6 – Restitution for partial contractual performances – Timothy Pilkington
Chapter 7 – Rationalising Australian equitable estoppel in the twenty first century: doctrinal coherence or fragmentation? Allison Silink
Chapter 8 – Contract Vitiation – Rick Bigwood
Chapter 9 – Equitable doctrine, fairness and the law of contract in Australia – Warren Swain
Part 3
Chapter 10 – Government contracts – where private meets public – Nick Seddon
Chapter 11 – The international dimensions of Australian contract law – Lisa Spagnolo
Chapter 12 – Cognition, Automation and the Future of Contract Law – Ryan Catterwell
Chapter 13 – Testing Stewart Macaulay’s theory down under: A study of Australian – small to medium-sized enterprises’ understandings of, and experiences with, contract law – Mark Giancaspro
Australian Contract Law in the 21st Century, a collection of 13 essays with a valuable foreword by Bill Gummow, provides a snapshot of Australian contract law scholarship at this moment in time. As described by its editors in their introduction, the collection “.. . seek[s] to make a contribution to understanding a number of debates and questions in an important and complex branch of the law”.
The Hon. Stephen Gageler, Justice of the High Court of Australia. Cambridge Law Journal
There is a three page introduction by the editors, and an insightful three page foreword by former High Court of Australia judge William Gummow, with many citations and the comment that I agree with that “there is much here of interest and enlightenment”.
Paul Latimer, Victorian Law Institute Journal, August 2021
