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Law421 Big Time Toymaker

In: Business and Management

Submitted By longway
Words 1069
Pages 5
Big Time Toymaker
At what point, if ever, did the parties have a contract?
BTT paid Chou $25,000.00 to have exclusive rights for negotiations for a 90 day period. Big Time Toymaker and Chou did not have a binding enforceable contract made during this 90 day period. An oral distribution agreement was made three day before the 90 days deadline, but it was in the negotiations. But the negotiations said that there was not supposed to be an agreement unless it was in writing. Three days before the deadline, after the meeting Chou offered to draft the contract that would formalize their agreement. Before Chou could finish the draft, an e-mail was received from a BTT manager. The e-mail repeated the key terms of the distribution agreement including price, time frame, and obligations of both parties. Chou stopped working on the draft for one month, because he believed that BTT was going to draft the contract. During this time the 90 days had passed and it voided any agreement of the 90 days agreement that BTT and Chou had (Melvin, 2011 pg. 136).
What facts may weigh in favor of or against Chou in terms of the parties’ objective intent to contract?
The facts that weigh against Chou’s in terms of the parties’ objective intent to a contract are that there was no written agreement, which was required in the negotiations. There was also no signatures were used to make the contract official. The word contract was never used in the email sent from BTT. Also the 90 day deadline that was agreed upon by Chou and BTT had passed without a written contract being done and finalized. Another thing that may weight against Chou is that he agreed to finalize the draft and never did so. He also let a long amount of time go by without contacting BTT. The fact that weights in favor of Chou, is that Chou did fax the contract to BTT as soon as receiving the fax about the contract from BTT.

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