ABSTRACT

Twentieth century authorities began to recognise that a threat to property could be just as coercive as a threat to the person, and what began to develop was a recognition of the notion of economic duress. Accordingly, it was observed, obiter, that a threat to burn a man’s house or to slash a valuable painting would be sufficient to invalidate a contract made as a result of the threat.12 Subsequently, it came to be recognised that a threat to interfere with a contract might also suffice, with the result that if, in the course of renegotiating a contract, one party improperly threatens not to perform unless the other party makes some concession, that threat may amount to actionable duress. But this, in turn, raises the difficulty of distinguishing between actionable duress and hard bargaining. Factors which may assist in distinguishing these matters seem to include whether the person subject to the threat has raised a protest.13