Pre-contractual statements: When can they come back to bite you?

Parties may say all sorts of things when negotiating a contract. Where sophisticated commercial parties are involved, most pre-contractual statements will, no doubt, be both carefully considered and accurate. But as we all know, things can go wrong.

Where a pre-contractual statement turns out to be false, the implications can be serious. The counterparty may have a right to unwind the contract, or to claim damages, or both. In an extreme case, there may be criminal liability for fraud.

In this third of our updated and relaunched series of contract disputes practical guides, Harry Edwards, Ceri Morgan and David Coulling consider the circumstances in which parties may be liable for pre-contractual statements, the remedies that may be available to a counterparty, and some practical steps that can be taken to minimise the risks.

You can click here to download the PDF guide or contact webinars to access the archived version of our webinar exploring these issues.

We will be publishing further editions of the updated series of contract disputes practical guides in the coming months. In the meantime, the first and second editions in our relaunched series, and the remaining editions from the original series, can be accessed from the home page for our contract disputes series (which is also linked under “our guides” in the top menu).