ABSTRACT
A contract by which the parties agree a certain state of affairs as between them may be enforced not by an award of damages or an order of specific performance but by raising contractual estoppel which compels determination of the parties' rights and liabilities on the agreed basis. Contractual estoppel does not belong to other established categories of estoppel, nor yet is a distortion of any of them. It is a distinct category of legal estoppel. The decade that followed since contractual estoppel made her first appearance saw a plethora of cases and wide variety of factual circumstances where a claimant or defendant succeeded in giving effect to contractual bargain by means of contractual estoppel. Contractual estoppel is not a socially dangerous or legally dubious aberration, rather, it is the long overdue correction of just such an aberration which lingered after consumer protection policy distorted general contract law in Lowe v Lombank.
