Representations and warranties

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See our new Representations and Warranties Anatomy for more about your favourite representation.

Representation

A representation is a statement of present or historical fact made by one person to another outside the bounds of a contract that induces that other person to enter a contract. By its nature, a representation is therefore not a term of the contract itself — it cannot be; it was made before the contract came about; it is an egg to the contract’s chicken — although that won’t stop Legal riddling your contract with representations and, usually, co-branding them as warranties for good measure. A false representation may entitle an innocent to claim under the Misrepresentation Act 1967 and rescind its contract, or claim damages for negligent misstatement in tort.

Being founded on the tortious action on negligent misstatement, one of the ingredients of an actionable misrepresentation is that the representer somehow fell short of her duty of care: the simple fact that the representation was false might not be not enough if she can’t cannot reasonably have known it was false. This feels a more significant distinction than it is: tort governs situations where the parties, being randoms, have not had the opportunity to document their duties to one another, so the law steps in to help. Where they have, through the medium of contract, the law says, “you don’t need my clever appeals to the judgment of prudent people on public transport in south London to work out how you must treat each other, because you have worked it out for yourselves.”

Where the parties have written down their respective duties, but they still appeal to a tortious standard — which is what they are doing by writing “representations” into a contract — they are admitting to confusion between the laws of tort and contract. Here the fellow on the Clapham omnibus would surely say that the abstract duty of care maps exactly on to what the parties have voluntarily agreed. Why would it be any different? To be “negligent” under a contract is surely to breach it; no more and no less.

Warranty

A warranty is a statement of a present or historical fact made as a term of a contract. If a warrantor breaches its warranty the injured party might claim damages for the breach of contract and sue for damages, but cannot rescind it altogether. To set aside the contract as if it never happened — to void it, ab initio — you would need to prove a misrepresentation from someone before the contract, that induced you to enter it.

Since a warranty is creature of contract, one’s liability for its failure is absolute: if a warranty fails, you’re in the schtook: it is no defence that you could not reasonably have known that the matters warranted were not true, or that some mendacious interloper (other than the other party to the contract) has intervened to defeat your best intentions unless that kind of conditionality is written into the contract. This is the appeal of a written contract: the parties can write down with infinite, tedious precision, what they mean to say, and what they say they mean, one-hundred per cent.

It also points up the logical befuddlement behind the idea of writing representations into a contract.

So why have both?

BECAUSE THE SKY MIGHT FALL IN YOUR HEAD IF YOU DON’T, YOU DOLT. Didn’t you learn anything at law school? Wouldn’t your client rather have the option to rescind the contract (if it made a bad bargain) or sue for damages for breach (if it made a good one)?

You may wonder whether the usual rules about concurrent liability in contract and tort would have something to say about that but, in Casanova’s immortal words — if in doubt, stick it in. Be a lover, not a fighter.

Is it such a big deal?

Well, that titan of drafting style Ken Adams devoted a 27-page scholarly monograph to the subject — maybe a slow week in the practice — to argue the world is wrong, he is right, and the correct word is neither “represents”, not “warrants”, but “states”. Now the JC is the last person in the world who would take umbrage at flying one’s opinion straight into the face of global consensus — and we’re fond of Ken: he’s a bit like a well-meaning uncle who just goes on a bit on his pet subjects — but we have trouble with this one. The key to the problem reveals itself in the first paragraph of his monologue:

The phrase “represents and warrants” is a fixture in English-language contracts. It’s used to introduce statements of fact, as are the verbs “represents” and “warrants” used separately. And the words “representation” and “warranty” are used to refer to statements of fact in a contract.

But it does a bit more than that. A statement of fact is a bit of scene-setting: “It was a dark and stormy night”. “It was bluebell time in Kent”. They add colour and richness to the reading experience, but unless they saddle someone with some sort of legal obligation, they have no place in a contract.

Firstly, a simple statement in a contract — “the vendor states that it is duly incorporated in the state of Vermont” doesn’t manage anything of legal significance, unless you infer that to be a representation or a warranty.

What sort of things does one represent or warrant about?

Facts

Matters of fact relating to the internal workings of one’s organisation that are not readily apparent to an outsider looking in, and which have a direct bearing on the enforceability of the contract. For example, that execution of the contract has been properly authorised by any internal procedures — this helps in a little way to give comfort that, if push came to shove, the contract could not be set aside as not having been validly entered. Unless you are trading with a municipal authority such as — cue dramatic look gopher

Dramatic look gopher yesterday

— Orange County or Hammersmith and Fulham council, this is a fanciful, chicken-lickenish fear in this day and age, but it is hardly an imposition to make this rep, so just go with it.

Besides, a representation (as opposed to a warranty) in this case gives you a leg to stand on if your contract turns out to be void for ultra vires, as that misrepresentation, freed from the usual shackles of concurrent liability since there is, Q.E.D. no contract, dangles fruitily before you as an open-and-shut action in tort for negligent misstatement.

Some matters of fact — such as your counterparty’s internal motivation or intent in entering the contract — are silly things to seek representations or warranties about, because it is impossible to gainsay them. As legal artifacts, they are completely useless. For a great example of such a useless warranty, see Para 14(e) of the 2010 GMSLA.

Not laws

Generally speaking matters of law are not appropriate for reps or warranties — if you want a legal opinion you should, well, get a legal opinion — but every rule is made to be broken and there are some practical exceptions: reps and warranties as to one’s own legal capacity to enter into a contract or the transaction contemplated by it are common and not really objectionable: this is technically a matter of law but is uncommonly specific to your own organisation, and is a legal “fact” which you really should know about and your counterparty can’t really be bagged for not knowing.

That said, if you happen to be wrong about it, this only tends to emerge at the point where your counterparty is trying to enforce your contract and finds it cannot. Hence: the difference between a representation and a warranty: as a warranty, this is useless, because, QED, the contract must be enforceable to establish a breach of warranty that the contract is enforceable. It is a mobius loop. A misrepresentation that you have the capacity to enter into the contract sounds in tort, and thus doesn't rely on the contract being valid: it is a statement to a neighbour to whom one owes a duty of care.

See also

• Hedley Byrne
• Negligent misstatement
• Chicken Licken