Businesses often give their standard terms and conditions of
business (T&C) low priority until a dispute arises, by which
time it may be too late. It is not uncommon for a sales department
to issue quotations or accept orders using terms that are out of
date, copied from the internet or even be conducting business on
the customer's terms because the customer has successfully
substituted their own T&C for yours.
Terms & Conditions will be useless unless proper procedures
are followed to ensure they are incorporated into the contract and
prevail over any competing T&C. They will not bind your
customers unless they have been incorporated.
The common law rule is that after a contract has been formed by
offer and acceptance between the parties, new contract terms cannot
be introduced (unless by mutual consent). Therefore the all too
frequent business practice of sellers seeking to impose their
T&C by printing them on the back of their invoices will not be
sufficient to
