The COVID-19 outbreak has already had a significant impact on the performance of business to business contracts across the country.
In our latest podcast “Contracts in a time of coronavirus” Justin Byrne, a consultant at Wright Hassall discusses the various issues that have come under the microscope in relation to contracts, specifically in light of the pandemic.
Q1. What is the most common concern that businesses are raising with you at the moment?
Q2. Are you typically finding that force majeure clauses are covering the Coronavirus pandemic?
Q3. If the contractual terms do not specifically include a force majeure clause, what other relief may there be if a business cannot perform its contractual obligations?
Q4. What is the best course of action for a business to take if their contracting party is seeking to avoid the contract?
Q5. A lot of businesses will want to preserve their relationships with their clients. Where businesses are trying to work together to overcome some of the issues the pandemic is creating, do they need to be concerned about inadvertently varying the terms of their contract potentially?
Q6. Many businesses will have contractual arrangements with companies based in other countries, what additional considerations will they need to take into account?
It’s clear a lot of this will depend on the wording of the applicable contract and perhaps the first steps for businesses to take if they have concerns or questions about their rights and obligations is to chat it through with their adviser and undertake a complete review of their contracts to understand all the options available to them.
