Exit and enforcement
Force majeure, frustration & hardship
When performance becomes impossible, illegal, or ruinously expensive, English law offers strikingly little automatic relief. Three mechanisms address changed circumstances - frustration (a narrow common law doctrine), force majeure (purely contractual), and hardship (no general doctrine at all) - and without the right clauses, the party affected bears the risk entirely.
Pillar guide
Force majeure, frustration, and hardship: when circumstances change.
When performance becomes impossible, illegal, or ruinously expensive, English law offers strikingly little automatic relief. Three mechanisms address changed circumstances - frustration (a narrow common law doctrine), force majeure (purely contractual), and hardship (no general doctrine at all) - and without the right clauses, the party affected bears the risk entirely.
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All force majeure, frustration & hardship guides.
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How the three mechanisms for changed circumstances differ, what each requires, and why English law makes you draft for them.
Frustration of contractWhen frustration discharges a contract - the radically different test, the categories, what it does not cover, and the 1943 Act.
Force majeure clausesWhy English law implies no force majeure, the essential elements, how causation and 'beyond reasonable control' work, and the MUR Shipping rule.
Drafting force majeure clausesHow to draft an enforceable force majeure clause - the ejusdem generis trap, notice, mitigation, a longstop, and common mistakes.
Hardship clausesWhy English law has no general hardship doctrine, how civil law and the UNIDROIT/ICC frameworks differ, and how to draft a hardship clause.
Force majeure vs frustrationHow force majeure and frustration differ and interact, when frustration survives a force majeure clause, and how to preserve or exclude it.
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