Nominees and the Contracts (Privity) Act 1982

Abstract

This paper concerns the nature of “or nominee” clauses in sale and purchase agreements. There has been a long-standing debate about whether a nominee can enforce such a contract under section 4 of the Contracts (Privity) Act 1982 (CPA 1982). The Supreme Court in Laidlaw v Parsonage held that the law on this point was settled, a nominee could enforce the benefit of the contract under section 4 of the CPA 1982. The Supreme Court held that there was no prospect of the nominees succeeding and the objections raised, in allowing a nominee to enforce under section 4, were unconvincing. This paper submits that this area of law was not settled in a satisfactory manner. There were legitimate objections raised in previous authorities that were not sufficiently dealt with in the summary judgment. This paper asserts that the Supreme Court should have allowed the appeal so as to enable these objections to have been dealt with in an agreeable manner.