Force Majeure in UK Law

The implication behind that imperative is that if the party does not then it cannot rely on force majeure. The reason for requiring notice to be given must be that the "other party" can then investigate the alleged force majeure at the time. It can challenge whether it does prevent performance or delay in performance by the party invoking force majeure. Alternatively it can see if there are other means of enabling performance to be continued.

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.

Learned counsel for the buyers invited your Lordships to read clause 21 as if the first sentence were linked with the second by such words as "provided that"�an argument which must surely support the view that without such words, the second sentence does not attain condition status.

First, the clause does not, but easily could have, said that notice was a condition precedent or that reliance on force majeure was only available provided such notice was given. Second, the clause does not contain any clear implication that that must have been intended. Third, the demurrage time bar clause provides a specific cut off point beyond which a demurrage claim is not possible. The force majeure clause does not contain such a provision.

Mr. Rainey's argument derives support from the circumstance that the words to be construed in a contractual frustration case are in essence the same as the words to be construed in an exceptions clause. Thus, in the present case the court must construe the words “resulting from” and “directly affect”. If those words appeared in a contractual frustration the court would give them the effect explained by Donaldson LJ in Bremer Handelsgesellschaft v Westzucker.

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).

There is, I entirely agree, also no 'rule' automatically ascribing habitual residence by dependence to a place to which the child has never been. There is a factual enquiry into the integration of the family unit to which he or she belongs, and that may well yield the conclusion that the child shares the habitual residence of that unit even if he has not yet achieved physical presence there, especially if he is being prevented by coercion or other force majeure from doing so.