Force Majeure in UK Law

Leading Cases
  • Mamidoil-Jetoil Greek Petroleum Company SA v Okta Crude Oil Refinery AD (No 3) sub nom Mamidoil-Jetoil Greek Petroleum Company SA v Okta Crude Oil Refinery AD (No 2)
    • Queen's Bench Division (Commercial Court)
    • 04 November 2002

    Lastly, if the notice provision is only an innominate term, then I find it difficult to see when the innocent party could allege it had suffered additional damage as a result of not being told promptly of the force majeure event other than the very damages that it would wish to recover for the first party's failure to perform the contract at all. These factors would all lead me to conclude that the parties intended the notice provision to be a condition precedent.

  • Coastal (Bermuda) Petroleum Ltd (Plaintiff v Vtt Vulcan Petroleum S.a. (Defendant "marine Star"
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 03 April 1996

    Firstly, it seems to me that the word "seller" or "sellers" means and can only mean the selling party in the relevant contract containing the force majeure clause, and does not refer to sellers further up the chain. Mr Havelock-Allan accepted that this must be so in that part of the clause dealing with "breakdown or injury to ships, pipelines, machinery or other facilities of the seller or those from whom the seller obtained products purchased hereunder.

  • Bremer Handelsgesellschaft mbH v Vanden Avenne-Izegem PVBA
    • House of Lords
    • 18 May 1978

  • Torquay Hotel Company Ltd v Cousins
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 17 December 1968

    First, there must be interference in the execution of a contract. The interference is not confined to the procurement of a breach of contract. It extends to a case where a third person prevents or hinders one party from performing his contract, even though it be not a breach. Second, the interference must be deliberate. The person must know of the contract or, at any rate, turn a blind eye to it and intend to interfere with it, see Emerald Construction Co. v. Lothian, (1966, 1 W.L.R. 691).

  • A v A (Children: Habitual Residence)
    • Supreme Court
    • 09 September 2013

    The contrary approach, which to my mind is correct, involves no rule or generality at all, save for the advice to look, in the case of an infant, at the position of the family unit of which he is part. This does not involve a rule for dependent habitual residence. It merely asserts the possibility that habitual residence may exist in a State which is the home of the family unit of which the infant is part, and is where he would be but for force majeure.

  • Edwinton Commercial Corporation v Tsavliriss Russ (Worldwide Salvage Towage) Ltd; The Sea Angel
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 12 June 2007

    What the “radically different” test, however, does not in itself tell us is that the doctrine is one of justice, as has been repeatedly affirmed on the highest authority. Ultimately the application of the test cannot safely be performed without the consequences of the decision, one way or the other, being measured against the demands of justice. Part of that calculation is the consideration that the frustration of a contract may well mean that the contractual allocation of risk is reversed.

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