Building Law Monthly
The scope of lawful act duress
In
Pakistan International Airlines Corporation v Times Travel (UK) Ltd [2021] UKSC 40 the Supreme Court held that English law recognises a doctrine of lawful act duress, albeit the scope of the
doctrine is very narrow. The Supreme Court also took the opportunity to affirm the ingredients of an economic duress claim
and, in a judgment which ranged over a number of issues, confirmed that English law does not recognise a general principle
of good faith in contracting or a doctrine of inequality of bargaining power. The principal significance of the decision for
the construction industry lies in the re-statement of the law relating to economic duress and the identification of the circumstances
in which it is possible to apply economic pressure without giving to the other party to the contract an entitlement to set
aside the contract into which the parties have entered.