{"id":781,"date":"2020-03-27T04:43:31","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T04:43:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lex-warrier.in\/archives\/?p=781"},"modified":"2020-03-27T04:47:16","modified_gmt":"2020-03-27T04:47:16","slug":"covid-19-force-majeure-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lex-warrier.in\/archives\/covid-19-force-majeure-contract.html","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 and force majeure: a contractual perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>Mythri Jonnala &amp; Akash Kumar<\/strong> <\/span><br \/>\nAssociate(s), Tatva Legal, Hyderabad<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Abstract<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The outbreak and spread of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/emergencies\/diseases\/novel-coronavirus-2019\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">COVID-19<\/a> has impacted the world in all aspects and has inevitably hit the economy. How does one factor in a pandemic while drafting and negotiation contracts? What can the parties to contracts do in the event of a pandemic, to protect themselves from a legal perspective? How do you determine in COVID-19 is a force majeure event? What if your force majeure clause does not contemplate the happening of a pandemic? The Indian Contract Act, 1872, through Section 56 and Section 32 accounts for these scenarios. In this article, the author analyses Section 56 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 in the background of the current COVID-19 outbreak. Author also refer to (i) a memorandum issued by the Ministry of Finance setting out the classification of the outbreak and spread of COVID-19 as natural calamity, thus constituting a force majeure event; and (ii) case laws which set out the current position of Section 56 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872. A part of our job as lawyer is to account for various of scenarios and ensure that we protect our clients. The outbreak and spread of COVID-19 is an example of how, while drafting force majeure clauses, we must cover all types of eventualities and situations, which may evolve and exist at that point in time.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>Keywords:<\/strong><\/span> COVID-19, Section 56, Force majeure, Indian contract act, Impossibility<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><strong>Preferred Citation:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"su-quote su-quote-style-default\"><div class=\"su-quote-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\">Mythri Jonnala &amp; Akash Kumar, COVID-19 and force majeure: a contractual perspective, The Lex-Warrier: Online Law Journal, (2020) 3, pp. 83 \u2013 87, ISSN (O): 2319-8338<\/div><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lex-warrier.in\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/COVID-19-force-majeure-contract.pdf\" class=\"su-button su-button-style-glass\" style=\"color:#FFFFFF;background-color:#ef792d;border-color:#c06124;border-radius:7px\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"color:#FFFFFF;padding:7px 20px;font-size:16px;line-height:24px;border-color:#f4a26c;border-radius:7px;text-shadow:none\"><i class=\"sui sui-file-pdf-o\" style=\"font-size:16px;color:#FFFFFF\"><\/i> Read the full paper<\/span><\/a>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mythri Jonnala &amp; Akash Kumar Associate(s), Tatva Legal, Hyderabad Abstract The outbreak and spread of COVID-19 has impacted the world in all aspects and has inevitably hit the economy. How&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abstract","no-post-thumbnail","clearfix","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>COVID-19 and force majeure: a contractual perspective |<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"outbreak and spread of COVID-19 has impacted the world in all aspects and has inevitably hit the economy. 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