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BBA 1323 Fourth Semester
Business Law
Acknowledgement
The success and the final outcome of this assignment required a lot of guidance and
assistance of many people and I am extremely fortunate to have got this all along the
completion of this assigned work. Whatever I have done is only due to such guidance and
assistance so I would not forget to thank them. I respect and thank Mr. Bikash sir for giving
me an opportunity to do this assignment and providing me all the support and guidance
which made me complete the assignment on time, I am extremely grateful to him for
providing such nice support and guidance.
Last but not the least, I would like to express my gratitude to my friends and respondents
for support and willingness to clear my doubts during the assignment.
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BBA 1323 Fourth Semester
Business Law
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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BBA 1323 Fourth Semester
Business Law
Introduction
Contract, in the simplest definition, a promise enforceable by law. The promise may be to
do something or to refrain from doing something. The making of a contract requires the
mutual assent of two or more persons, one of them ordinarily making an offer and another
accepting. If one of the parties fails to keep the promise, the other is entitled to legal redress.
The law of contracts considers such questions as whether a contract exists, what the
meaning of it is, whether a contract has been broken, and what compensation is due to
injured party.
The meaning of offer and acceptance is the basis of a contract. To form a contract, there
must be an offer made by one party which is, in turn, accepted by another party, and then,
in most cases goods and/or services must be exchanged between the two.
Elements to an Offer
In contract law, the party making the offer is called the “offeror.” Put simply, this is the
person or company that has ownership in some form of the goods and/or services being
offered.
The other party to the agreement is called the “offeree.” This is the person or company
willing to pay the other party some form of compensation in order to use or acquire
ownership of the goods and/or services. The result of this agreement is a legally binding
contract, which is usually, but not always, finalized through the signatures of both parties.
The Expression: This is where the parties articulate in some form an inclination to enter
into a contract and to make that contract legally binding upon the acceptance by both
parties. The expression may take a wide variety of forms, from a personal discussion to a
letter that lays out the basics of the terms.
The Intention: This is a slightly more vague concept, and it is often left up to the courts to
determine whether or not intention was breached by a party. Essentially, intention involves
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Business Law
a presumption by both parties that the agreement will be legally binding and comes down
to the belief that neither party would begin discussions without the intent to live up to their
side of the bargain.
Offers can really cover anything, from a verbal agreement to provide a service, such as
housesitting, to a detailed contract with legal terminology that one may find in an
agreement to transfer real estate. It’s more than a promise, because it must be made with
the understanding that what is being agreed to will be legally binding. It can be for the sale
of goods, a pledge to perform a service, or even a promise not to engage in an activity. The
more complex the agreement, the greater the likelihood will be that each party would
engage legal counsel to negotiate the contract.
Elements to Acceptance
Acceptance is the final agreement of both parties to consent to the terms of the offer. While
it is common for the terms of the offer to be negotiated before acceptance, if it can be
shown that through conduct and communications that the parties did in fact intend to agree
to the final terms of the contract, then formal acceptance of an offer is not required for it to
be legally binding.
It is also not always necessary that acceptance be in the form of a signature on a piece of
paper, although this is the most commonly accepted agreement between parties. For
instance, if a party performs an act that would not otherwise happen, such as a painting
contractor painting a house or a professional moving company moving furniture from one
location to another, it would be interpreted as acceptance and agreement to the terms of the
offer of payment for these services.
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Business Law
Main Body
True offers may be accepted to form a contract, whereas representations such as invitations
to treat may not. However, although an invitation to treat cannot be accepted it should not
be ignored, for it may nevertheless affect the offer. For example, where an offer is made in
response to an invitation to treat, the offer may incorporate the terms of the invitation to
treat (unless the offer expressly incorporates different terms).
In this case Pradip is an antique dealer and one Saturday in February 2020 he puts a Statue
in the window of his shop with a sign which stated 'exceptional piece of 19th century Statue
- on offer for NRs 50000.
Case of Manish
Manish happened to notice the Statue as he walked past the shop and thought he would like
to have it. Unfortunately, as he was late for an important meeting, he could not go into the
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Business Law
shop to buy it, but as soon as his meeting was finished, he wrote to Pradip agreeing to buy
the Statue for the stated price of NRs 50000. The letter was posted at 11:30 am.
Here, although the message was sent at 11:30am (Sunday), Pradip only saw the message
on the next day. As according to the law, the putting a sale sign for good is only considered
as invitation to treat rather than an offer thus the letter sent by Manish will be only
considered as an offer. For the contract to form there should be both offer and acceptance
and in this case the letter from Manish is only an offer and Pradip haven’t given any
acceptance to this offer, thus there is contract between seller and buyer. Thus, Pradip
doesn’t have any kind of legal relation or responsibility towards Manish to sell the statue.
Case of Dinesh
In the second case, Dinesh visited the shop and did some bargaining for statue but wasn’t
able to buy the statue at intended price i.e., @Nrs 40000 as Pradip was only willing to go
as low as Nrs.45000 thus a deal couldn’t happen. There was offer and counter offer from
both sides but a contract wasn’t formed as neither party could accept the terms in valuation
of statue. Thus, Dinesh left without any contract but he later realized that Nrs.45000 was a
good price for the statue and wrote a letter to Pradip agreeing to buy it for the price and
posted the letter at 12:30pm but Pradip only saw the letter on another day. Here, if Dinesh
and Pradip had agreed on price for the statue at the store the contract would have been
formed as the offer from Pradip was only until Dinesh was in store and as soon as he left
the store the offer automatically expired thus, the message sent by Dinesh was just another
offer as it didn’t have the acceptance of Pradip at that point. So, contract wasn’t formed in
this context and Pradip won’t have any legal responsibilities towards Dinesh.
Case of Basanta
Just before closing time at 5 pm. Basanta came into Pradip's Shop and he also offered NRs
40000 for the Statue. This time Pradip agreed to sell the statue at that price and Basanta
promised to return the following Monday with the money. Here, as the offer of buying the
statue at NRs 40000 was accepted by Pradip and both mutually agreed to form a contract
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Business Law
to sell the statue to Basanta. Thus, even if Pradip finds out that he had better offers from
Dinesh and Manish later on he will still have to sell it to Basanta because contract was
already formed otherwise, he may have to face legal consequences.
It is partly convincing to adopt the general principle that the display of goods does not
constitute an offer, and it is the customer who makes an offer when presenting the goods
at the cash desk. Thus, making Pradip liable only to
Conclusion
An offer is a sign of their willingness to agree on certain terms from one person to another.
If there is an express or implied agreement, a contract will then be formed. A contract is
said to come into being when the acceptance of an offer has been told to the offeror by the
offeree.
The communication of the offer shall be complete when it comes to the knowledge of the
person to whom the offer is made and the communication of the acceptance shall be
complete when the acceptance is put in a course of transmission to the offeror. Therefore,
offer and acceptance are the essential elements of a contract and in either case, it should be
done on the basis of one’s free will and with the intention of concluding a legally binding
agreement.
As analyzed above, from my point of view, it is partly convincing to adopt the general
principle that the display of goods does not constitute an offer, and it is the customer who
makes an offer when presenting the goods at the cash desk.
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Reference