Terms & Conditions

Terms and Conditions fulfill a valuable role in protecting you in the event that something goes wrong. It can be a dangerous thing when you are entering into contracts if you do not remain vigilant and read the small print.

Terms and Conditions are essential as a planning device. Along with setting out how goods or services will be sold/delivered/carried and how a business will be run, they can (and should) provide for what will happen and who will be liable (and for what) in the event that something does go wrong in the performance of the contract, e.g. if the load is lost or damaged or a delivery or collection is late.

They can also exclude or limit liability for certain types of consequences and losses if things go wrong, but there are legal rules relating to whether certain types of losses can be excluded which we can advise you on.

Terms and Conditions are also extremely important from an insurance perspective:

• you must ensure that you have obtained adequate protection to cover any potential liability in the event that something does go wrong. Clearly this will be difficult to ensure, if the extent of the potential liability is unknown or unlimited, which will most likely be the case if there is no limit to the liability incorporated into the contract.
  
• in some cases it is necessary to incorporate terms and conditions so as to comply with the terms if the insurance cover, e.g. for policies that require that at the very least certain industry standard conditions are incorporated into contracts.
  
• it may be that the terms and conditions themselves set out both parties obligations to insure and difficulties could arise if you did not read, understand and comply with your obligations in any type of contract whether it be terms and conditions, lease agreements or any other contractual arrangement.
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  A further point to note is that a failure to use terms and conditions and to ensure that they are incorporated into contracts by bringing them to the attention of the customer before the contract is entered into, can have substantial financial consequences.
  
  While there are a number of standard conditions of carriage (RHA, BIFFA etc.) it is always preferable to have terms and conditions that match your individual business requirements, that they are
  checked and approved before things go wrong and that people are aware of the specific steps that need to be taken to ensure that they are incorporated.
  
  The legal team can advise on:
• the best provisions for your terms and conditions
• how to incorporate them
• how to limit your liability
  
  They can draft your terms and conditions for you, review existing terms and conditions or help you enforce them if the need arises.

But remember that prevention is better than a cure.