Book Review: Contract as Assumption II: Formation, Performance and Enforcement by Brian Coote, ed by JW Carter
Sandra Booysen
Citation: [2016] Sing JLS 369
The saying that we “stand on the shoulders of giants" couldn't be more apt for Emeritus_x000D_
Professor Brian Coote CBE, who has influenced and stimulated our thinking about modern contract law in so many ways. Just one example of this influential scholarship, which features in this volume, is Coote's unorthodox but persuasive view of exemption clauses as demarcating the primary obligations under the contract, rather than acting to protect from a liability that otherwise arises. Coote's modest remark in the final chapter of this book, “[w]ho is interested in my kind of contract anyway?" (at p 206) belies the attention paid to his insights by scholars all over. As the title of the volume indicates, this text continues the theme of an earlier volume, Contract as Assumption: Essays on a Theme (2010). In this book, edited and prefaced by Emeritus Professor John Carter, another contract giant and fellow antipodean, contract scholars are offered a second collection, mostly of Coote's previous writings that were previously published in books or eminent journals including_x000D_
the Cambridge Law Journal, Journal of Contract Law and the Modern Law Review._x000D_
Each of the republished chapters has seen slight changes from the original as part of_x000D_
Carter's editing contribution. The predominant focus is on aspects of contract formation,_x000D_
explored against the background of Coote's theory of contract as assumed,_x000D_
not imposed, obligations.