2024 Contract Law Question 3 — LawShortcut Independent Model Answer
A supplier threatens to cut off deliveries and call in the debt, gives Sarah two hours to decide, and then sends in the salesperson she has trusted for three years with an agreement already drawn. A 25-mark question running economic duress and undue influence side by side.
Scenario summary
Sarah owns a thriving cake shop, So-Sara-Lee. Much of what makes it work is a product she buys in from her supplier, Bake4Profit.
Bake4Profit told her supply would stop unless she took out a lease on a whole new suite of equipment carrying the supplier’s branding. Sarah cannot afford the lease.
Letters and callers followed. The pressure peaked when a Bake4Profit representative called to the shop and threatened to stop deliveries immediately and to call in everything she owed. He gave her two hours to make up her mind.
Roughly an hour later her usual Bake4Profit salesperson, Jim, arrived. She was plainly distressed. He settled her down and put a proposal to her: transfer 49% of the business to Bake4Profit and the equipment would be supplied free of charge.
Sarah has trusted Jim for the three years since she started the business. He suggested she take legal advice; she said she trusted him and did not take it. Jim already had the agreement with him, and she signed it on the spot.
Candidates are asked to advise Sarah whether the contract can be set aside because of what Bake4Profit and/or Jim did.
This is a LawShortcut scenario summary written in our own words. For the exact examined wording, use the official King’s Inns paper linked above.
What this model answer covers
Issues and structure addressed in the full LawShortcut model answer:
- Reading the Question
- Issue 1 — Economic duress: the two-hour ultimatum
- Issue 2 — Undue influence: Jim, and why it binds Bake4Profit
- Issue 3 — Unconscionable bargain: the allied route
- Issue 4 — Remedy: rescission and its bars
- Overall advice to Sarah
- Where the 25 marks live
- Authorities relied on
- The reusable answer structure
- Common ways to lose marks
Read the complete LawShortcut model answer to this question — reading the question, issue spotting, the applicable law, application to the facts and conclusions — inside the King’s Inns Contract Law Model Answer Vault.
Part of the King’s Inns Contract Law Model Answer Vault — 30 independently authored model answers, 2020—2025.
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