Duress and Undue Influence

Duress and Undue Influence Introduction The vitiating factors covered in this chapter are the related concepts of duress and undue influence. Duress is a common law concept, based on threats made to a contracting party. Undue influence developed in equity to deal with situations where there was improper pressure, without necessarily any specific threats. Because the two concepts are closely related, questions raising one will often require discussion of the other. The fact that both areas have widened in scope in recent years also raises the issue of a general principle attacking ‘unconscionability’ in contracts, and this not infrequently appears in questions on these topics.