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Showing posts with the label common law

The Danger of Blinker Negotiation Style

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A Blinker is a tool used to narrow horse's sight to force his/her focus on a racing track. Although, for horses, blinkers are useful and help them to achieve a goal that they are meant to do (transportation or/and racing), for human, it is extremely a bad idea to wear a Blinker in negotiation process. One of the most learnt lessons in negotiation is that a big picture strategy is almost always the only way to accomplish a beneficial agreement for each party involved in a deal making process. A one cannot understand others' interests if he/she only focus on his/her interests, not taking into account others thoughts, desires and goals, which could lead to weak deal or negative impression that probably cause relationships to collapse. For instance, one of my employees asked for a salary rise, this is not the problem for me, the issue was that he requested a 80% increase only because the average salary of legal consultants in his level of experience is higher than his current

A Disagreement with Lord Hoffmann's Rules in Contract's Interpretation

I.          Introduction It appears that there is a difference between two principles in common law when it comes to contracts interpretation. Since 1982, The Australian High courts have endorsed the Codelfa approach, from Codelfa Construction Pty Ltd v State Rail Authority of N.S.W . , in interpreting commercial contracts. [1] The notion of Codelfa approach requires judges to adopt the natural and ‘plain meaning’ of contract words – not to construe the meaning of the words of an agreement, that is, unless there is an ambiguity. [2] In such cases where an obscurity in wording does occur, then the ‘evidence of surrounding circumstances is admissible to assist in the interpretation of the contract.’ [3] Thus, the judge will consider the background facts just when there is a lack of plain meaning in the terms of an agreement. In 1998, however, a new approach to contract interpretation was introduced, developed by Lord Hoffmann in the case of Investors Comp Schem