ABSTRACT
Although the vast majority of business agreements proceed to satisfactory completion, some commercial ventures may be thwarted, not by breach of contract, but by events beyond the parties’ control which overtake their agreement and render its performance impossible or illegal or, although physically possible, futile in the sense that its object has been wholly defeated. As Friedmann has pointed out (see Chapter 4): ‘The economic security aspect of contract ... is increasingly affected by the spread of such political, economic and social upheavals as war, revolution or inflation. Its legal result is the doctrine of frustration of contract, with its consequent extension of the legal excuses for the non-performance of contract.’ By ‘legal excuse’, Friedmann means that both parties, where the contract is frustrated, are no longer bound from the moment of frustration, ie from that moment the contract is void.
