'Contract Interpretation in the Supreme Court — Easy Case, Hard Law?'

Abstract

In this article Professor McLauchlan discusses the important decision of the New Zealand Supreme Court in Vector Gas Ltd v Bay of Plenty Energy Ltd. He analyses each of the five judgments and highlights the questions and serious difficulties raised by them. He concludes that the facts of the case ought to have admitted of a relatively simple and principled solution, particularly given that all of the judges accepted, in one context or another, that that there was an objective consensus or common understanding as to the meaning of the words in dispute.

Keywords: Contract, Interpretation

JEL Classification: K12