Contract breach. It is a reality – often, an allegation – in the vast and varied New York business universe.
And unsurprisingly so. The commercial sphere is fast-paced and complex. Expectations and assumptions change.
Market conditions are never static and predictable. Every party involved in a business arrangement has a specific agenda, with rights it seeks to promote and third-party duties it insists be complied with.
Contracts assume center stage as the vehicles to cement participants’ understanding regarding key business matters. Their commonality in the commercial realm is a flat given. An in-depth overview of contract essentials – and most specifically contractual disagreements – underscores that contracts “are utilized daily by businesses everywhere.”
Which means this: Contractual spats and elevated disputes occur everywhere, as well.
Common contractual disagreements in the business sphere
Commercial litigants across New York and the rest of the country spar across subject matter terrain that touches virtually every imaginable topic. And they do so relative to contracts like these:
- Foundational contracts between businesses that set forth essential rights, duties and expectations
- Service contracts (e.g., between a contractor and project developer)
- Client/customer contracts
- Vendor and supplier contracts
- Financing/lending contracts
Contracts are executed to help ensure that things go right. Notably, they are also crafted to guard against potential business downsides, with contract breach claims being common when expectations sour.
Remedies that can be pursued for contract breach
Every business disagreement is unique, and a remedy in one case might differ markedly from what results in another. Broadly speaking, though, a contractual breach remedy often provides for the following types of relief:
- Damage payment, which can be variable depending on case facts and what contractual provisions might specifically provide for
- Contract cancellation, sometimes coupled with restitution for an injured party
- Specific performance (mandate to breaching party to carry out the terms of a contract)
One national provider of legal information duly stresses in a discussion of contract breach and available remedies for nonperformance that “quite a bit may be at stake” in a contractual dispute. It advises an involved party to secure timely and proven help from an established business law legal team.
