Frustration of Purpose, Brexit, the COVID-19 Pandemic and Commercial Contracts

Abstract

Lawyers and commercial contracting have been stressed by extraordinary uncertainty over the past four years. Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic’s uncertain outcomes and the debate on the appropriate application of the frustration doctrine represent one of the most challenging issues for contract law scholars and practitioners. This paper contributes to the extensive scholarly debate on whether Brexit and Covid-19 constitute frustration of purpose events in contracts by exploiting the findings of the economic literature on the consequences of supervening events. It offers a conceptual framework for an improved legal intervention in case of supervening events in which a court must decide whether a certain event classifies as frustration of purpose and whether to discharge the promisor’s obligations