Business Law and Taxation

Assignment Task:

Mr. Abdul a booking agent was planning to open his own restaurant cum club. He had planned a grand opening ceremony and was in search of a music band to perform in the ceremony. While walking home one night, he heard a music band rehearsing in a garage near to his home. He was impressed by their performance. He knocked the garage door and was invited to witness the rehearsal. At the end of the rehearsal, he was impressed and offered them the grand opening night performance and promised to give 20% of the tickets of the show to the band. The music band was called "CRISP". Mr. Abdul told them that a recording company would be present at the venue to record the show.

The band members were excited and they decided to move out of the garage and hired a room to rehearse for the show. They even incurred some legal costs to start "CRISP LLC" and this Company entered a contract with Mr. Abdul. Mr. Abdul started a wide spread advertising campaign for the show but very few tickets got sold. He finally took decision to cancel his contract with the band so that he can employ a well known band for the same evening and he communicated the same to "CRISP LLC". In the contract which he had signed with "CRISP LLC" there was no clause to terminate the contract but there was a clause which entitled either party to pay the other a sum of 5,000 Omani Rials by way of liquidated damages for any breach of contract.

The band members were extremely angry and shocked when they heard the news. However, few days later they got a call from Mr. Abdul saying that in his capacity as a booking agent he can arrange for the band another show at a high school. The band leaders refused and asked him not ----again.

Meanwhile Mr. Abdul hired a reputed band to perform at the opening ceremony. However, on the day of performance, "CRISP LLC" heard a TV announcement that the band that Mr. Abdul had hired could not perform because as their drummer had been arrested in relation to allegations of fraud. On knowing this "CRISP LLC" band raced down to the venue and passed the security and got on to the stage. Before Mr. Abdul could stop them they had started playing. The audience loved them and the event was huge success. However, Mr. Abdul refused to pay for their performance.

Based on the scenario above, prepare a detailed report including the following:

A critical discussion on:
- Was Abdul's agreement a binding contract? Justify your answer
- Can "CRISP LLC" claim 5,000 Oman Rials liquidated damages? Justify your answer.

Ensure that you analyze the case by applying the following elements of a contract.
- Possible types of contract applicable
- Essentials of an Offer
- Acceptance
- Consideration
- Capacity of parties
- Genuineness of Assent
- Breach of contract

Your work will be graded on the following aspects:

1. This is an Individual Assignment.

2. The assignment MUST be submitted on-line (through MOVE) on or before the due date i.e.24th November, 2016

3. Your assignment shall reflect the depth and breadth of your original analyses in a clear and coherent manner.

4. Use of the relevant academic literature to support ideas and issues discussed. The range of academic sources such as texts and journals to support your arguments and comments.

5. Any reference to authors and other writers shall be quoted with due acknowledgement in your assignment report using the Harvard Referencing System. For details of Harvard referencing style refer the student's hand book page 41 and section 7.2.

6. This is an individual assignment and carries a 50% weighting of the module grade.

7. This assignment follows a report format and must be original and creative. An analytical piece of work is required. The use of ‘cut and paste' approach will be penalized. It must be presented in a structured manner, with appropriate cover page, content page, introduction, body (with appropriate heading / sub-headings), conclusion, references, page numbered and any required appendices.

8. Your report should be word processed and professionally presented. The length of your report should be between 2000 - 2500 words, presented in text of font size 12 with 1.5 line spacing. Please state the exact word count at the end of the assignment.

9. The cover page should be attached with the assignment and uploaded through MOVE (on-line. Name of the student, The Programme, Module Title, Assignment Title and number of words must be reflected on the cover sheet.

10. All assignments must be adhered strictly to the deadlines specified by Majan College. Failure to hand in the assignment for any reason and without prior approval and a valid written extension from the module tutor will not be marked and will be awarded a grade G (0) irrespective of the quality of the work. See students handbook page 16 and section 4.4

11. Unacknowledged use of work of others (plagiarism) is regarded as a dishonest practice and will be will be penalized. See the penalties in the student's handbook page 31 section 5.7.

Additional Guidelines

- The Assignment Submission link on MOVE will be open, a week ahead of the submission date.

- You can submit your assignment multiple times, till the submission deadline. Note that Turnitin could take upto 24 hours to produce similarity reports for submissions.

- The last submission, within the deadline, will be considered as your final submission.

- Assignments should be submitted by 6pm on the day of the deadline. There is a grace period until midnight to allow for any technical difficulties, but any assignments submitted after this will be counted as late. Technical problems will not be accepted as an excuse for submitting after the day of the deadline.

- The similarity percentage of your final submission will be one of the factors considered, for assessing the originality of your assignment. However, the decision to report an assignment for plagiarism is taken by the Lecturers, who mark your assignment.

- The Lecturers will consider a number of factors such as Assignment type, Part of the assignment where similarity occurs, Nature of similarity etc., along with the similarity percentage of your assignment, to assess the originality of your assignment. Therefore, similarity percentage would not be accepted as a basis for disputing academic judgments regarding plagiarism.

- Note that the similarity percentage of your submission can change till the submission deadline, if the submissions of other students have similarity to your assignment. Therefore, the similarity percentages are not final, till the assignment submission is closed.