This chapter discusses the principles relating to offers. For an offer to be made there must be an apparent intention to make one. Ordinary displays of priced goods are regarded as invitations to treat, which customers make an offer to buy. Ordinary adverts are regarded as invitations to treat, but one can be an offer if there is an apparent intention to make one. Meanwhile, an auction ‘without reserve’ will ordinarily amount to an offer for a unilateral contract to sell to the highest bidder. Ordinarily, an invitation for tenders is an invitation to treat and each tender is an offer. When an invitation for tenders says that the most competitive tender will result in a contract, it will be treated as an offer for a unilateral contract under which the best tender will be accepted. Offers can be ended by lapse, revocation, rejection, and (possibly) death.
Chapter
2. Agreement Part I: Offer
Chapter
2. The banker–customer relationship
Iris Chiu and Joanna Wilson
This chapter discusses the relationship between a bank and its customer. The Bills of Exchange Act 1882 defines a banker to include ‘a body of persons whether incorporated or not who carry on the business of banking’. Meanwhile, upon the opening of an account, a person will be deemed to have become a customer of the bank and there is no requirement for a habitual course of dealings. Although the relationship between a bank and its customer is primarily governed by contract law, there may be circumstances in which the bank undertakes additional obligations, thereby taking the relationship beyond the remit of contract law such that the bank becomes subject to fiduciary duties of trust and loyalty. The chapter then considers the fiduciary nature of the banker–customer relationship as well as undue influence.