[Paper Presentation]: 'The Nature of Promissory Conditions' by Jordan English
Event date
15 March 2021
Event time
13:00 - 14:00
Oxford week
Audience
Postgraduate Students
Venue
Microsoft Teams
Speaker(s)
This is the first meeting of a forum for postgraduate research students with an interest in private law to come together to discuss their work and exchange ideas. At each meeting, a student will give a short, informal presentation on an aspect of their research which will be discussed by the group. Each meeting will be chaired by a Faculty member, but otherwise the participants will all be post-graduate students. As well as substantive discussion, there will also be discussion of topics relevant to thesis writing and career development.
We are very pleased that the first student speaker will be Jordan English (University of Oxford). As well as discussion of Jordan’s paper, on 'The Nature of Promissory Conditions' (abstract below), there will also be discussion of the general process of publishing articles in academic journals. The Chair will be Prof Ben McFarlane..
This event is open to postgraduate research students with an interest in private law, whether studying at Oxford or elsewhere.To register and receive the Teams link, please email one of the Co-Convenors: aleksandra.kobyasheva@sant.ox.ac.uk or anirudh.belle@sant.ox.ac.uk
When registering, please can you indicate your institution. If you would like to volunteer to present at a future meeting, please do let us know your proposed topic.
Abstract: Modern orthodoxy in contract law suggests that the phrase ‘promissory condition’ can refer to two distinct concepts. The first is a promise or representation the fulfilment or truth of which is a condition of a party’s obligation to perform. The second is simply an important or ‘essential term’, breach of which gives rise to a ‘power to terminate’. In this paper, I argue that ‘promissory conditions’ should not be understood in the second of these two senses. The result is that the reason an innocent party is discharged following ‘breach of a condition’ is not because of the exercise of any power to terminate, but because of the failure of condition. This is part of a broader claim that discharge following breach, frustration, and common mistake are all instances of a general principle: discharge for failure of condition.