Privity of Contract 2000

Robert Merkin’s book opens with Viscount Haldane’s remark ‘that only a person who is a party to a contract can sue on it’. Since they give no consideration, historically, third parties are not a party to the contract and are, therefore, barred from recovery. In contract, consideration moves from the promisee who, in behalf of the third party, may chart the unhappy course between the Scylla and Charybdis of specific performance and estoppel. Merkin analyses how Great Britain’s Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act, 1999, cuts through this third party conundrum by abrogating the Doctrine of Privity.