Battle of Forms

The so-called battle of the forms arises when two parties are negotiating a contract and each party purports to enter into the contract on its own standard terms. Although the parties may have reached a consensus on all the material points of their contractual relationship, they have not reached an agreement on the applicable standard terms. In this situation it is doubtful whether a contract has come into existence and if one has, what the content of the contract is and, if the parties used choice of law clauses, what the applicable law is. Felix Aden analyses the battle of forms using a multilateral comparative law approach.