Breach of Contract

Huang is the son of a successful Malaysian business people and works for his parents company. Huang owns a home in a suburb of Melbourne. The allotment of land upon which the house is built is quite large and Huang decides to construct a small factory and workshop at the rear of his property.

Huang has submitted a tender to a manufacturing company to make and assemble components for the company, and he intends to use the factory and workshop to house the machinery and equipment that he needs to use in this process. His tender has been accepted, and he needs to have the garage and workshop completed by 1st November if he is to meet the deadline for supply of the components for which he has submitted the tender.

Huang contacts Bill, a registered builder and discusses with Bill his requirements for the construction of the garage and workshop. He explains to Bill that he needs the buildings to be completed by 1st November, but he does not tell Bill why that date is important to Huang. Bill assumes that Huang is going to use the factory and workshop for domestic and recreational purposes. He agrees to build the factory and workshop for Huang, and to complete the construction by 1st November.

Due to delays on the part of Bill, construction of the buildings is not completed until the following February, and Huang loses the contract for the supply of the components. The loss of the contract is directly due to the fact that Bill did not complete construction of the garage and workshop by 1st November as promised.

The delay in completion of the contract by Bill has therefore resulted in a loss to Huang of $150,000.

Huang now wishes to sue Bill for breach of his building contract and to claim from Bill the sum of $150,000 that he says has resulted from Bill’s breach of the contract.

Advise Huang of his legal/contractual rights.

NOTES

This is a Research assignment – students should not expect this material to be covered in class before the Due Date of the assignment. Students should accordingly commence their own research into the assignment topic Students must use texts, scholarly articles and reputable online resources for their research, and these items, together with relevant cases and legislation, should be referred to in the assignment.
The assignment is 2,000 words (+/-10%) in length.
The assignment must be typed or printed on one side only of A4 paper with 1.5 or double spacing and leaving a left-hand margin wide enough for examiners’ comments and corrections.
The assignment must include footnotes, a bibliography and may include a synopsis.