Law in 101 words

Contracts by email

If the requirements for offer and acceptance, consideration and intention to create legal relations are satisfied, they may be communicated in any form. Email does not ‘magic away’ the normal rules of contract. In Pretty Pictures v Quixote Films [2003] the parties had conducted a lengthy negotiation by email, concluding with an email from one setting out the terms and a reply from the other approving them and saying that a written contract would be sent. Held: there was no contract because it was clear that the parties intended that there would be no contract until a deal memo was signed.

In connection with

Forsters, solicitors, advised Irtysh Petroleum plc on the purchase of a Russian company and started proceedings for unpaid fees, which were settled by an agreement covering ‘all claims that the parties had or could have had against each other’, and the definition of ‘claims’ ended with ‘arising out of or in connection with the action’. Irtysh discovered that the shares