SANDERSON LTD v SIMTOM FOOD PRODUCTS LTD

[2019] EWHC 442 (TCC), Technology and Construction Court, Judge Halliwell, sitting as a Judge of the High Court, 27 February 2019

Contract – Failure to co-operate – Whether it amounted to a repudiatory breach or a renunciation of the contract

The parties entered into a contract in November 2014 for the supply by the claimant to the defendant of electronic software, equipment and associated services. While the parties were in agreement that their contract had come to an end, they were in dispute as to the cause of the termination. The claimant submitted that the defendant had repudiated the contract when it declined to co-operate in arrangements for a meeting to restart the project following an agreed delay of some 12 months. The claimant's case was that, in doing so, the defendant had renounced the contract between the parties. For its part, the defendant denied that it was in repudiatory breach of contract and maintained that the claimant had repudiated the contract when it purported to accept the defendant's putative breach or breaches of contract.