Once more unto the breach dear friends? That’s not a phrase  you’ll hear often in normal life but lawyers, and by extension experts,  spend a lot of time talking about breaches. Of course they don’t mean holes in the walls of a besieged city as Henry V did, they’re referring to the many and various ways a client can be said to have broken the rules set out in a contract.

Experts are often called upon to identify how bad a breach is so its worth being aware of the main phrases that are used;

Minor breaches are fairly obvious, the term refers to smaller breaches that only affect part of the goods or services whereas material breaches are much more serious and involve failure to fulfil an important part of the contract. They can result in serious consequences for the breaching party, though so you’ll need to discuss with your legal team what the definition of ‘material breach’ is for a particular contract before expressing any opinions on the subject.

At the extreme end a party can be in repudiatory breach if they are deemed to have walked away from or refused to perform the contract. If that happens the other party is entitled to stop performing their end of the bargain, whether that’s paying for services or doing their own part of the job. An example would be a builder  walking off a job and refusing to work, though we’d be interested to hear about real world examples from members!

For more information and training on the role of the expert see https://academyofexperts.org/events/

Our picture is of course from the BBC’s Hollow Crown version of Henry V starring Tom Hiddlestone.