Contract Law 2

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	Contract Law

Common examples of invitations to treat are goods displayed on supermarket shelves: the presentation of the goods by the customer amounts to an offer which is accepted by the cashier.

By analogy, the description of goods on a Web page advertisement can be regarded as an invitation to treat, so long as the party putting the information on the Web page intends that he needs to acknowledge any responses. For this reason Web page hosts will often state the procedure to be followed for a binding contract to come into existence.

The second element of the creation of a contract is communication of an equivocal acceptance of the offer. Any qualification on the offer is likely to be regarded as a counter-offer.

Acceptance can be inferred by conduct, but in the context of the Internet it is likely that an e-mail or automated response will be in a means of acceptance. As with offers, the key maybe to state expressly how acceptance is to be made.

As for the remaining elements for the creation of a binding contract on the Internet: consideration should be clear from the offer or offering to buy the goods/services and the offeree agreeing to buy them; and an intention to create legal relations should be clear from the circumstances.