To any student of contract law, it is well-known that there are two distinctive features of English contract law that are not found (in the same form) in civil law jurisdictions such as France, Germany or Scotland, namely consideration and privity. It is also well-known that, at least, privity has been subject to attacks from judges, legislators and academics for much of the 20th century. In 1937 the Law Revision Committee, chaired by Lord Wright, recommended the legislative reform of privity; and it appears that that failed only because of the outbreak of the Second World War.1 Lord Denning in various cases tried unsuccessfully to bring about reform judicially.2 And Lords Reid, Scarman, Diplock and, more recently, Lord Goff and Lord Steyn have all in their judgments criticized the privity doctrine and called for its reform. As Professor Beatson has stated, no other doctrine of English contract law has been subjected to as much criticism by the senior judiciary as has the privity doctrine.3 Add to that numerous academic critiques of the doctrine and one can understand why in 1990 the Law Commission considered that it was appropriate to prepare a Consultation Paper on the reform of privity. That was published in 1991 and the

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