MPA 4102 Business Law

Assignment

(a)"Some clauses which I have seen would need to be printed in red ink on the face of

the document with a red hand pointing to it before the notice could be held to be

sufficient.'' - Lord Denning LJ, Spurling v Bradshaw [1956].

In the light of the above statement, discuss and explain the common law applicable

to those "clauses".

(40 marks)

(b) Arthur is a self-employed journalist who is specialised in financial matters. He has

written articles for a financial newspaper 'Frank Financial Reporter' ('FFR') for some

years. Two days ago at a dinner party Arthur learned from his friend, Charles, a director

of Matchun Bank, Hong Kong branch ('the Bank'), a renowned bank in Switzerland, that

the Bank was in difficulties and several of its directors were being investigated for

fraud.

The next day Arthur wrote a short article about the Bank and its problems and sent it to

the Editor of FFR. FFR had not requested the article from Arthur. However, in previous

dealings FFR had paid Arthur $5,000 for such unsolicited articles.

Two days after Arthur sent his article to FFR, he received an email from its Editor, with

the subject title "freelance contributors", containing an offer of $15,000 for his recent

article on the affairs of the Bank and its directors. One week after the Editor's email,

FFR published Arthur's article. FFR now denies the existence of a contract with Arthur

and refuses to pay him.

Advise Arthur on the following issues:

(i) Whether there was an offer. (30 marks)

(ii) Whether there was any acceptance, assuming such offer existed.

(30 marks)

(Total 100 marks)