Do you think before pressing the "Send" button?
Email is often regarded by construction professionals as being a
less formal means of communication not having the same status as
posted letters but extreme caution must be exercised when entering
into contractual negotiations, as email correspondence may have
contractual effect – even in respect of something as
important as a guarantee.
A very old piece of legislation, the Statute of Frauds Act 1677,
sets out a number of requirements with regards to contract of
guarantees and their validity.
In the recent case of Golden Ocean Group Ltd v Salgaocar Mining
Industries Ltd the Court of Appeal held that in certain
circumstances in today's commercial world, the requirement for
a contract of guarantee to be in writing could be satisfied by
reference to a sequence of negotiating e-mails or other documents
of the sort which was commonplace in similar transactions in the
marketplace and need not be contained in a single
