READOS / Business
Commercial Law, Contracts and Disputes
How Australian contracts are formed, interpreted, performed and enforced, and how commercial disputes are resolved.
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- 01How Australian commercial law works: legislation, common law, equity, courts and tribunalsA plain-language map of where Australian business law comes from, how precedent works, which courts and tribunals hear commercial disputes and how to find the rules that apply.
- 02How contracts are formed and what they contain: offer, consideration, terms, privity, novation and exclusionsMany contract disputes start with a casual yes, an unpriced variation or terms sent too late. The basics of how contracts form, what binds the parties and how exclusion clauses work.
- 03When does a conversation become a commitment? Offers, intention, exchange and framework agreementsQuotes, emails and handshakes can bind a business sooner than people expect, while panel deals may promise less. How to be clear when you are informing, negotiating or committing.
- 04A signature is not the whole story: pressure, influence, mistakes and misleading statementsA signed contract can still be challenged if consent was impaired or claims were misleading. How to govern sales claims, check key facts, handle dependency and spot pressure before signing.
- 05Implied terms in Australian contracts: what a contract says without saying itHow courts and legislation add terms to business contracts, the tests for implying a term, what statute guarantees, and how to draft so you rely less on implication.
- 06Matching the contract to the work: from a purchase order to a whole-of-life agreementA short contract is not low risk and a long one is not better protection. How to scale contract structure to duration, interfaces, change, measurability, consequence and exit.
- 07Liability caps, exclusions and insurance: adding up the losses your contracts make you keepEvery liability cap you accept is a decision to absorb a supplier's failure above a line. How to read caps and exclusions as risk decisions, total what you keep and match insurance to it.
- 08Price adjustment clauses: sharing inflation and market risk fairly in long contractsA fixed price over several years forces someone to guess future costs. How index-linked adjustment works, how to choose indices and weights, and how to keep the formula fair and auditable.
- 09Protecting the know-how you hand over: suppliers, staff and what contracts can actually holdOutsourcing is approved as a cost decision but carried out as a transfer of capability. What crosses to suppliers and staff, which protections stop at a border and why recoverability matters.
- 10What are you already allowed to do? Reading leases, approvals and contracts for permissionsBusinesses read their documents for what they forbid and miss what they permit. How to find unused permissions in leases, approvals and contracts, judge their value and plan to use them.
- 11When expert advice becomes a liability: scope, assumptions and reliance in professional opinionsWhy engineering and consulting advice carries responsibility when others rely on it, and how stating purpose, scope, evidence, assumptions and intended reliance protects everyone.
- 12After the signature: making a contract work from mobilisation to acceptanceSigning a contract creates obligations; managing it makes them work. How to hand over what was agreed, control who instructs, meet your own obligations and accept work properly.
- 13Getting paid for unfinished or uncontracted work: quantum meruit, substantial performance and progress claimsWhat a business can recover when a job ends early, when extra work was never priced or when no enforceable contract exists, and the records that decide the outcome.
- 14How contracts end: completion, agreement, frustration, breach and the controlled exitWork stopping is not a contract ending. How completion, agreement, frustration and breach differ, what survives each, and how to design a clean exit when a deal no longer makes sense.
- 15Repudiation and anticipatory breach: what to do when the other side signals it will not performHow to recognise repudiation, the choice between terminating and affirming, why wrongful termination is a serious risk, and a disciplined way to respond to a party that may walk away.
- 16When a contract is broken: compensation, liquidated damages and reducing the lossDamages compensate a lost bargain, they do not punish. How to work out what a breach really cost, limit the loss, and set a liquidated damages rate from what delay would actually cost.
- 17Beyond damages: specific performance, injunctions, rescission and rectificationThe remedies beyond damages, explained for business: when a court may order a party to perform, stop, unwind a contract or correct a document, and why these remedies are discretionary.
- 18Thinking clearly about a contract problem: issue, rule, evidence and consequenceContract disputes arrive as angry emails and conflicting memories. How to find the real question, test it against the contract and evidence, weigh the consequences and prevent repeats.
- 19Resolving disagreements without stopping the work: choosing the right process and keeping delivery movingMost contract disagreements arise while work is under way. How to match the dispute process to the decision needed, escalate to real authority and keep undisputed work moving.
- 20Settling a commercial dispute: offers, without prejudice talks, releases and deedsHow commercial disputes are settled in practice: protecting negotiations, making offers that carry weight, and drafting a settlement deed whose release says exactly what it should.
- 21What commercial litigation involves: stages, costs, time and the judgment you still have to collectA plain-language guide for business owners to how commercial court proceedings run in Australia, what they cost in money and management time, and how to judge whether a claim is worth pursuing.
These topic-based reading collections are organised alphabetically; chapters may be read in any order.
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