by Laura Macgregor, Professor of Scots Law, University of Edinburgh
The English Court of Appeal case, Parker-Grennan v Camelot UK Lotteries Ltd,[1] provides a useful and authoritative reminder of the rules on incorporation of terms and conditions into a contract. The approach taken by the court is similar to the approach taken in an English case decided in 2022, at a lower level in the English judicial hierarchy.[2] Both cases now clarify the law. Nevertheless, the Court of Appeal case illustrates rather aptly that law developed for an environment of hard copy contracts can be applied only with difficulty to the online environment.[3] And while the law may be clear, value judgments continue to be required over whether the company has done what is “reasonably sufficient” to bring terms to the attention of the consumer. This need is particularly acute in situations (unlike the facts of this case) where the terms could be described as “unusual or onerous”.
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