Scenario

You are employed by Events Management Ltd in the business acquisition and development department.  Events Management has been going through a heavy acquisition phase over recent months.  During this time you have been working closely with your departmental manager Samantha on the potential acquisition of Rigby Corporate Function Planners Pty Ltd.

• As part of this process, several emails have been exchanged between the parties which have resulted in the following key points being agreed to:

1. A purchase price of $750,000 has been agreed,
2. The owner/managing director of Rigby Corporate Function Planners will stay on in a consultative role for a period of 12 months, the terms of which will be contained in a separate agreement,
3. The date of business transition will be 1^st July 2018, and
4. All plant, equipment and staff will be transferred to Events Management on the transition date.

• A number of items had yet to be agreed but discussions had taken place, these included:

1. Transition of staff leave liabilities,
2. Transfer of intellectual property, and the
3. Mechanism for informing Rigby Corporate Function Planner’s major clients.

As at today’s date a rough draft of a contract had been prepared by Events Management but had not been forwarded to Rigby Corporate Function Planners for review.

Samantha has just informed you via email that the Managing Director of Rigby Corporate Function Planners has just emailed to advise that they will be withdrawing from the proposed business sale.  Samantha explains that your company has spent considerable time and resources on this acquisition and wants to know what legal options may exist to force the conclusion of the sale.

• You are required to write a letter of advice for Samantha to present to your company’s CEO.  This advice needs to consider the following:

1. Does a contract exist?
2. If not does the negotiations conducted provide sufficient certainty for a court to conclude that a contract did exist?
3. Your letter of advice should provide a reasoned conclusion on the status of the contract.