(Trinidad and Tobago) The Board considered the test for when the implication of a contractual term was necessary.
Held: The defendant would not have chosen the claimant for redundancy if he had not accepted voluntary redundancy. The term properly to be implied into the contract was that the defendant would not act to prevent the claimant from completing five years of service, unless the claimant was in repudiatory breach of contract. They had done nothing to prevent the claimant from completing his five year period and they were not in breach of contract.
Lord Sumption JSC in argument in set the test as ”being that a term can only be implied if, without the term, the contract would lack commercial or practical coherence’
Lord Hughes said: ‘The concept of necessity must not be watered down. Necessity is not established by showing that the contract would be improved by the addition. The fairness or equity of a suggested implied term is a essential but not a sufficient pre-condition for inclusion.’
Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury PSC, Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore, Lord Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony, Lord Carnwath, Lord Hughes JJSC
[2017] UKPC 2, [2017] IRLR 432, [2017] ICR 531, [2017] WLR(D) 110, [2017] Bus LR 784
Bailii, WLRD
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Lehman Brothers International (Europe) v Exotix Partners Llp ChD 9-Sep-2019
The parties had contracted to trade global depository notes issued by the Peruvian government. Each made mistakes as to their true value, thinking them scraps worth a few thousand dollars, whereas their true value was over $8m. On the defendant . .
These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 28 June 2021; Ref: scu.575376 br>