A force majeure event occurs, and suddenly it is everywhere, on the news, across social media, in business discussions, and even in legal commentary. Everyone is talking about it. But the real issue is not how widely the event is discussed or how serious it appears. The real question is whether it will actually affect your contract, your business, or your legal obligations. For an event to qualify as force majeure, it must generally have been unforeseeable at the time of contracting, unavoidable by reasonable means, and, most importantly, it must have rendered performance impossible.
Under UAE law, force majeure is measured by what it does to the obligation itself. The real test is impossibility. Article 273(1) of the UAE Civil Transactions Law provides that, in bilateral contracts, if force majeure supervenes and makes performance of the obligation impossible, the corresponding reciprocal obligation is extinguished and the contract is terminated automatically by operation of law.
