1. Tony Walmsley and Emma Teare
Law of Contract
Tony Walmsley and Emma Teare

2. Requirements for a contract
Offer + Acceptance = Agreement
Consideration
Intention to Create Legal Relations

3. Offer or Invitation to Treat?
An offer once accepted creates an agreement
An offer can be contrasted with an invitation to treat
An invitation to treat is an invitation to enter negotiations
The “acceptance” of an invitation to treat does NOT create an agreement
It is not always easy to distinguish between an offer and an invitation to treat

4. Offer or Invitation to Treat?
In certain types of standard transactions (e.g. display of goods, advertisements)
there are some general rules that apply as to whether or not an offer has been made (can be rebutted)

5. Advertisements Generally these are Invitations to Treat NOT offers
If an advert in the paper was an offer the person who placed the advertisement would be required to contract with anyone/everyone who wanted to purchase the goods at the price stated

6. Examples of Invitations to Treat
Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Boots [1953] 1 QB 401
Partridge v Crittenden [1968] 1 WLR 1204
Fisher v Bell [1961] 1 QB 394

7. Some adverts ARE offers
Often this is the case in UNILATERAL contracts
The leading case is…

8. Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co [1893] 1 QB 256 Court of Appeal

9. Rewards are often offers
Gibbons v Proctor (1891) 64 LT 594
Taylor v Allon [1966] 1 QB 304
R v Clarke (1927) 40 CLR 227
Williams v Cawardine (1833) 5 C & P 566

10. Example question: ‘Chris offered to sell:
‘Chris offered to sell: 
a) his Hornby train set to Richard…..’
Is this necessarily an offer in the legal sense?