Case-based evaluation · Current framework and proposed law
A reform earns its detail when it meets a difficult case. We compare existing law and the proposed package, identifying evidence, changed burdens and unresolved questions.
The evaluation reconstructs eight reported decisions and applies thirty clearly labelled hypothetical disputes to the first model package. The existing court holdings remain what the courts decided. Proposed outcomes are this research’s analysis.
Unless a scenario says otherwise, assume a valid contract governed by Saint Lucian law and formed after the proposed contract module’s commencement. Earlier agreements need the separate transition rules. Special statutory protections remain relevant.
No automatic damages calculator. A refund, compensation, useful work retained and unpaid price must be reconciled. Facts, valuation and proof matter. These comparisons do not establish that litigation would cost less or that the public supports a particular rule.
Eight reported decisions
[2023] UKPC 22 · 2023-06-13 · paras13–32,34–46,54–69
Article917A constitutionally valid; relevant English common law and Acts in force at trial may enter, subject to scope, adaptation and express local priority. Defamation provisions considered survive local conflict objections.
The reception bill would preserve actually operative law and stop later foreign changes entering automatically through the specified routes. It would not relitigate this decision or claim that every Defamation Act provision applies. The unresolved transition issues are addressed expressly as proposed rules.
Limit: Does not decide every English Act, delegated instrument, local-precedent conflict or retroactivity issue.
Open the judgment source ↗HCVAP2007/041 · 2008-06-02 · paras7–16
English abolition of estate lost-years recovery conflicted with express Article609. Local article prevailed; Ismael overruled.
Local statutory priority remains. The reform does not promise that every foreign restriction disappears; it preserves the existing legal tests and requires deliberate future statutory change.
Limit: Para16 expressly did not decide ambulatory interpretation, later settled in Hilaire.
Open the judgment source ↗SLUHCV2009/0814 · 2013-05-02 · paras34–35,40–53
Applied existing Code damage/default/foreseeability and building-price rules; English repair-cost mitigation authority assisted. Award reduced for delay despite acknowledged inability to fund completion.
The contract module makes cure, substitute work, damages and mitigation easier to trace. Reasonableness still depends on evidence and resources. It does not establish that the claimant would receive a different amount.
Limit: Do not generalise fact-specific discount or evidentiary compromises into universal rules. Source misspells Mertens in para35.
Open the judgment source ↗SLUHCM2020/0028(formerly SLUHCM2018/0068) · 2022-03-30 · paras58–60,96–99
Applied Velox to enforce memorandum despite gratuitous cause; specific performance ordered. Other relief depended on condominium documents/statute.
The module expressly preserves enforceable undertakings without English-law consideration. It retains cause, validity, proof and third-person rules. This is continuity, not a new rule making every informal promise enforceable.
Limit:
Open the judgment source ↗SLUHCM2020/0006 · 2022-12-29 · paras34–61,75–85,97
Increased expense/occupier issues did not establish frustration; compulsory acquisition vesting land before completion did. Contract ended and deposit return entitlement recognised; deposit already repaid.
Frustration remains distinct from mere increased expense. Financial consequences require their own analysis. The deposit had already been returned; the judgment should not be described as a new refund order.
Limit: Paper2 paras34–65 insufficient pinpoint for final frustration holding: use75–85,especially84.
Open the judgment source ↗SLUHCVAP2013/0033 · 2016-04-18 · paras26–36
Specific performance protected by Code997 and917A. Possession brought Article1388 into play, excluding simple receding under1387;954 and956 supported enforcement.
Orders for performance remain available within the proposed limits and existing special law. The court must examine the obligation, practicability and protected interests; the model does not guarantee an order in every valid-contract case.
Limit: Website title differs from representative named in judgment; record exact docket and formal party capacity.
Open the judgment source ↗[2014] UKPC 30 · 2014-09-03 · paras11–21; Hilaire para39
Personal loan obligation remained enforceable independently of security; Code999/1001 default could occur by suit. Common-law-only dictum in para20 later limited in Hilaire.
Default rules and prescription must be kept separate. The contract model retains prescription and does not treat the life of a personal debt and an associated security interest as interchangeable.
Limit: Full primary judgment reviewed. Para20 thirty-year damages prescription is explicitly arguable and undecided, not a holding.
Open the judgment source ↗Civil Appeal3/1996;(1997)55WIR123 · 1997-05-26 · PDFpp8–9,13–16
Applied anticipatory breach, acceptance and mitigation; criticised broad statutory inconsistency wording that left Code/Land Registration Act reconciliation to users.
The proposed assurance mechanism need not create a futile waiting period where an inability to perform is objectively clear. Section B-17(4) expressly accommodates that situation while retaining the other requirements for a remedy.
Limit: No numbered paragraphs in this retrieved edition.
Open the judgment source ↗30 deliberately difficult examples
30 of 30 scenarios shown. Each is an analytical comparison, not a decided case.
Facts: A builder receives a deposit, leaves defective partial work and abandons a house renovation.
Code 997–998 permits performance and undoing; 1004 addresses loss. Construction 1584–1591 and consumer rights can supply specific rules. Lisa Andrew [34]–[50] illustrates damages and mitigation.
The bargain, accepted work and payment allocation must be established.
Justified termination and reasonable substitute work are possible. A safe cure opportunity does not obstruct urgent protection. Refund, retained work, unpaid price and damages must be reconciled.
CPRA sections 4, 13, 15, 18–25, 28–32; Schedule 1 Part A item 1–3
Facts: An owner refuses necessary site access, then claims all delay losses; the builder also installs defective wiring.
Code 956,1002–1005 and construction-specific allocation govern contractual responsibility. An owner's obstruction does not establish that an unrelated defect is excused.
How much delay each event caused is evidentially contested.
Access-related delay is excluded to the extent caused by the owner; reasonable rescheduling follows. The builder remains responsible for separable defective wiring and consequent loss.
CPRA sections 6–7, 11, 18, 25–28
Facts: A hurricane blocks site access for several days; repairs remain feasible afterwards.
Code 1002–1003 addresses non-imputable events and assumed risk; 1130–1132B addresses impossibility and frustration. Specific construction allocation can prevail.
The weather label alone establishes neither excuse nor discharge.
33 can excuse only proven affected delay; unaffected duties continue. Notice, reasonable preparation and mitigation remain relevant. A brief blockage ordinarily does not establish fundamentally different performance under 34.
CPRA sections 4, 7(4), 11, 21, 33–35
Facts: A hurricane permanently destroys the unique venue booked for an event; an advance and preparatory expenses exist.
Code 1132A–1132B contains money, expense and benefit adjustments after frustration, contractual-allocation rules and exclusions. Destruction does not mechanically entitle every payer to an unreduced refund.
The booking terms, substitutability and responsibility for destruction matter.
If discharge under section 34 is established, section 35 preserves Articles 1132A–1132B adjustment. Restitution under section 24 instead governs termination under Part 4, whether or not damages are recoverable. The court considers expenses, benefits and applicable exclusions under the correct route.
CPRA sections 4, 23–24, 34–35
Facts: A supplier delivers one day late without material loss; the buyer invokes a market-price fall to cancel.
Code 954,997 and 999–1005 interact with contractual timing, special sales provisions and received termination doctrine. Sewell illustrates why the actual terms and conduct matter.
An essential deadline or express cancellation clause may change the result.
Default may exist without statutory termination entitlement. Mere minor delay fails 21 absent another valid right. An enforceable express timing or statutory right remains available; damages need proven loss.
CPRA sections 5–6, 8, 13, 15–16, 21–22, 27
Facts: Two days before a wedding, the caterer unequivocally says it cannot supply the promised meal.
Code 997,1000 and 1004–1006 provide remedy, time-purpose and damages anchors; anticipatory doctrine requires the relevant domestic and received authorities.
Cancellation, repudiation and contractual compensation clauses must be distinguished.
Clear repudiation permits early termination and reasonable substitute arrangements. A cure offered after the wedding cannot serve the purpose. Refund and replacement-loss calculations are reconciled; distress is not automatically compensable.
CPRA sections 13(1)(c), 15, 17(4), 21–29, 32
Facts: A small business rejects a prompt, safe and fully effective repair solely to claim a larger loss.
Code 997–998 permits performance and correction; mitigation is applied in Lisa Andrew [35],[49]–[50]. Existing law's precise cure entitlement is not comprehensively mapped here.
Repair quality and the customer's grounds for refusal may be disputed.
Before valid termination, compliant 15 cure should be permitted. Refusal may leave resulting avoidable loss unrecoverable. The customer retains distinct delay loss and may reject inferior, unsafe or repeatedly unsuccessful correction.
CPRA sections 14–15, 20, 25, 28, 32
Facts: A supplier hears an uncorroborated credit-risk rumour and demands full advance payment contrary to agreed credit terms.
Code 954 and 1020–1023 interact with insolvency legislation. Insolvency Act 4,63 and 160 can override termination or acceleration tied to insolvency processes.
A rumour differs from objectively supported threatened non-performance.
17 does not authorise arbitrary re-pricing of credit. Assurance requires substantial objective grounds and a proportionate demand. Special insolvency restrictions control even where commercial concern is genuine.
CPRA sections 4–6, 14, 17, 21, 38
Facts: A contract demands EC$10,000 for a minor delay in paying money, besides ordinary interest.
Code 1007 and 1066 allow reduction of stipulated sums, but 1008 specifically regulates compensation for delayed money payment. Consumer and credit protections may independently control the term.
Characterise the charge and the underlying obligation before applying penalty doctrine.
The sum is not automatically enforceable or merely reduced. Section 30(1) requires default under section 13; section 30(8) preserves section 31 and Article 1008’s restriction. Any remaining lawful agreed-payment issue is assessed under section 30 and mandatory consumer controls.
CPRA sections 4–5, 13, 30–32, 37
Facts: After a builder's breach, the homeowner cannot fund replacement work upfront and continues paying rent.
Lisa Andrew [49]–[50] expressly records inability to afford completion but reduces some repair/rent loss for delay. That fact-sensitive outcome is not a universal rule requiring borrowing.
Available means and reasonable alternatives need evidence.
28 requires realistic assessment of resources and access to substitutes. It neither presumes affordable finance nor exempts every loss caused by waiting. Reasonably avoidable components can still be excluded.
CPRA sections 20, 25–29, 32
Facts: An unperformed EC$100,000 job has a EC$30,000 deposit. Equivalent replacement costs EC$110,000; no work is retained.
Code 1004 compensates loss and lost profit; 997 allows compatible remedies. A refund and compensation must be evaluated against the actual promised exchange.
Separate additional losses or an invalid termination would change the accounting.
Illustrative arithmetic: EC$30,000 refund plus EC$10,000 additional replacement loss gives EC$40,000 total. Paying EC$140,000 overall less that recovery leaves the promised EC$100,000 net cost. Refund plus the entire replacement bill would overcompensate.
CPRA sections 20(5), 23–25, 29, 32
Facts: A customer asks the court to compel a named artist personally to finish a commissioned portrait.
Code 997 permits specific performance in a case admitting it; 1073 recognises an interest in personal performance. That interest does not itself establish that coercive relief is proper.
Local equitable limits must be identified; no fact-matched local artist case is claimed.
19(4) bars compulsion of essential personal skill or judgment, including a one-off commission. 19(5) prevents indirect coercion by injunction. Refund and proven damages remain possible.
CPRA sections 9, 18–19, 21–29
Facts: A sufficiently certain written land-transfer undertaking is challenged solely because English bargain consideration was absent.
Article 917A preserves local cause and gratuitous agreements. Pigeon Island [58]–[60],[96]–[99] illustrates enforcement; land formalities and special rules still matter.
Absence of English consideration does not establish compliance with gift, sale or registration requirements.
The consideration objection alone fails if local validity requirements are satisfied. The model preserves cause and allows appropriate performance relief; it does not cure defective consent or conveyancing formalities.
CPRA sections 2–4, 19, 23(4); Schedule 1 Part B item 3
Facts: A contract benefits a third person who signifies assent; the original parties later try to remove that benefit.
Code 962 permits qualifying third-person stipulations and bars revocation by the stipulator after signified assent. The precise conditions of that article matter.
Not every incidental benefit satisfies 962, and assent must be proved.
The module preserves qualifying beneficiary rights rather than giving original parties a new power of revocation. A prospective opt-in cannot prejudice a third person's right without lawful consent.
CPRA sections 3–4, 19, 23(4), 39(4); Schedule 1 Part B item 3
Facts: An online buyer relies on a specific electronic-transactions cooling-off section whose commencement has not been established.
The Electronic Transaction Act official commencement list is section-specific. Current evidence does not establish commencement of 44–46; the Consumer Protection Act separately provides distance-selling rights.
A later commencement instrument could change the status and requires checking.
The module neither activates a dormant section nor invalidates the electronic contract. Applicable commenced provisions, ordinary contract law and consumer protections determine the claim.
CPRA sections 2(2), 4, 12, 37–38
Facts: A supplier requires a consumer to waive statutory quality, repair or refund rights before supplying goods.
Consumer Protection Act 61–66,86,90,103 and 112–113 regulate relevant terms, quality, warranty and exclusion questions; exact remedy and scope depend on the transaction.
There is no single identical refund entitlement for every defect.
A prohibited waiver remains ineffective. The general cure mechanism cannot reduce a mandatory consumer choice. Existing tribunal, complaint and court routes remain available within their jurisdictions.
CPRA sections 4–5, 10, 15(5), 30, 37–38
Facts: A bank mistakenly transfers EC$8,000 to a customer. Unaware of the mistake, the customer spends EC$6,000 on a non-refundable training course they would not otherwise have booked. After discovering the error, the bank demands the full EC$8,000.
Code quasi-contract provisions and the separate Article 974A connector matter. Whether the particular English restitution defence operates requires an identified proposition, source version, statutory interaction and facts; neither the label “unjust enrichment” nor citation of an English case settles all of that.
Whether the expenditure satisfies any legally available change-of-position defence, and whether retained benefits affect that defence, are unresolved on these assumed facts.
In COB, sections 4–7 and Schedule 1 item 4 continue any actually applicable restitution rule and any applicable defence. Sections 8 and 12 prevent a later English development from entering automatically. The contract module does not legislate a general mistaken-payment regime.
COB sections 4–8 and 12; Schedule 1 item 4
Facts: A road accident occurs after the reception cut-off. Before the Saint Lucian trial, England enacts and commences a new statutory defence for the relevant category of negligence. The defendant asks the local court to apply that defence through former Article 917A. The amendment is fictional and tests the mechanism.
Article 917A presently supplies an ambulatory source; *Hilaire* confirms that the relevant English statutory source is not limited to 1956 law. The temporal reach of a particular defence still requires analysis.
Under the present framework, the reception scope, local conflicts and temporal reach of a particular actual defence would all need examination.
In COB, sections 6–9 retain the pre-cut-off rule for a post-cut-off tort. The later English amendment has no force merely under reception. Sections 11–12 allow lawful domestic common-law development but not judicial amendment of a retained statute.
COB sections 6–12 and 26
Facts: A valid supply contract predates the module; its delivery obligation is breached after commencement.
Existing contractual law, reception and temporal rules govern the agreement. Hilaire [2023] UKPC 22 does not settle every accrued-right or retroactivity question.
The source date and the substantive module's application date are different questions.
The new performance rules do not apply solely because breach or trial occurs later. The companion Act still stops post-cut-off automatic English updating; ordinary domestic development continues.
CPRA sections 2 and 39; COB sections 8, 16(4), 18–20
Facts: An earlier contract's delivery date is varied after commencement; one party asserts the whole bargain now falls under the module.
The distinction between modification and replacement matters under existing contract law; 954 recognises modification and discharge. Labels alone do not determine legal effect.
A true novation can differ from a routine adjustment or exercise of an existing renewal right.
A variation alone does not switch regimes. A genuinely new contract follows the new law. Express prospective adoption is possible but cannot defeat accrued, mandatory or protected third-party rights.
CPRA sections 2, 4 and 39(1)–(5); COB section 18
Facts: A tort occurs; a fictional English statutory amendment A commences before the original Saint Lucian trial. After judgment, amendment B commences before the reception cut-off. An appeal, and potentially a fresh retrial on remittal, occurs after the cut-off.
*Hilaire* identifies the English law current at trial. It does not resolve every accrued-rights or appellate-clock issue. If the foreign change preceded trial, its temporal reach to earlier facts is still a separate question.
Hilaire does not settle every appellate source clock or retrospective effect. Whether A or B can affect the earlier conduct remains a separate temporal question.
In COB, sections 16(2)–(3), 17(3) and 17(5) assess correctness against law applicable when the appealed decision was made, preserve applicable earlier-version protections and prohibit post-cut-off English sources. Section 17(4) separately addresses a fresh retrial under sections 7 and 16, subject to binding appellate rulings.
COB sections 7, 16(2)–(3) and 17(3)–(6)
Facts: A civil judgment becomes final after available appeal routes are exhausted. A year later, the proposed register corrects an entry on a relevant English provision. The unsuccessful party asks for the judgment to be reopened solely because the entry changed.
Finality, appeals, fraud and other review grounds are governed by existing law. Finding a new source is not itself a universal ground to reopen a case.
Any independent reopening ground, including fraud or an available procedural remedy, must be identified under existing law.
In COB, sections 19 and 25(3) prevent a register correction or reception replacement alone reopening a final judgment or invalidating a settlement. Independent grounds remain available.
COB sections 19 and 25(3)
Facts: In a post-cut-off civil claim, a party identifies a pre-cut-off English rule absent from the research inventory and proposed register. No reported Saint Lucian case has applied it. After contested legal argument, the court must decide whether it was actually received before the cut-off.
Legal reception and the existence of a reported decision are distinct. A previously untested rule may or may not have been legally applicable, depending on the former reception tests.
Prior absence from litigation proves neither applicability nor non-applicability; the former reception tests and version must be established.
In COB, section 6(2) makes prior litigation, registration and official identification irrelevant as conditions of continuity. Section 7 permits later legal ascertainment. Sections 23(5) and 25(3) prevent the incomplete register eliminating a claim or defence.
COB sections 6(2), 7, 23(5) and 25(3)
Facts: A business relies on a register entry asserting that a particular English statute applies and spends money adapting its standard contracts. A later challenge shows that the provision was outside the reception route or conflicted with an express local enactment.
Current reception is determined by law, not a future proposed register. The supposed statute may be out of scope, uncommenced, in conflict or only partly relevant.
The legal reception question and any separate claim arising from inaccurate public information are distinct.
In COB, sections 6(3), 7, 22(3), 24 and 25 prevent the entry creating force. A correction requires reasons and visible history; the court applies legal sources.
COB sections 6(3), 7, 22(3), 24 and 25
Facts: After the cut-off, an English appellate judgment says an older common-law rule always had a meaning different from that assumed by one litigant. The litigant relies on it in an unresolved Saint Lucian case; the opponent argues that it changes the law and conflicts with binding local authority.
The relationship among evolving English law, received law and domestic precedent requires attention to the jurisdiction and question decided. Later judgments may claim to state what the law always was.
Distinguishing explanation from doctrinal change can be contested even when the foreign court describes its decision as declaratory.
In COB, sections 7(3), 11 and 12 distinguish historical ascertainment from domestic development. A later judgment is not conclusive merely because English; a Saint Lucian appellate judgment retains its own authority under 12(5). Section 19 protects finality.
COB sections 7(3), 11, 12 and 19
Facts: After the cut-off, a Saint Lucian importer and an overseas supplier expressly choose English law for an international supply contract. Assume the choice is valid under applicable private international law. England later changes a relevant rule, and the parties dispute its effect.
Rules of private international law determine validity and scope of a choice, subject to mandatory rules. Article 1132A's English-law phrase is an applicable-law provision, not the same mechanism as 917A reception.
A valid choice does not decide the chosen law’s temporal reach, the clause’s scope or mandatory local protections.
In COB, section 15 leaves that choice-of-law function intact. The contract module applies to contracts governed by Saint Lucian law; it does not automatically replace the English law selected for an international contract.
COB section 15; CPRA sections 2(1) and 4
Facts: An investment manager holds assets as trustee and separately promises contractual administration services. After the cut-off, alleged mismanagement is pleaded both as breach of trust and breach of contract; an English trust-law development is invoked.
Article 916A is a separate reception route. Whether a duty is a trust duty, contractual duty or both depends on substantive law and facts, not a pleading label.
Whether the duties arise independently, overlap or conflict depends on the instruments, property arrangements and substantive law.
In COB, section 5(4) preserves the independent trust route; specified contractual reception is capped under sections 4 and 8. Sections 10 and 14 preserve local statutory constraints.
COB sections 4, 5(4), 8, 10 and 14; CPRA sections 2, 4 and 32 where the contract module applies
Facts: A company owes a supplier EC$40,000; the supplier separately owes the company EC$25,000. Insolvency proceedings begin. The supplier invokes a contractual set-off term and Article 1127A, while the office-holder contests timing, mutuality and prejudice to other creditors.
Article 1127A adds an English connector to local set-off articles. Independently, the enacted Insolvency Act 17/2024 has express priority in section 4; collective remedies and stays need their own analysis.
Available contractual or received set-off does not itself satisfy the distinct insolvency conditions.
In COB, Schedule 1 item 5 caps the connector while sections 5(3) and 10 preserve special legislation. The module's sections 4, 14(5), 17(5) and 24(6) prevent individual contractual remedies being treated as freedom to ignore collective creditor rules.
COB sections 5(3), 10 and Schedule 1 item 5; CPRA sections 4, 14(5), 17(5) and 24(6)
Facts: An adult signs an instalment agreement requiring EC$20,000 for equipment offered at an EC$5,000 cash price. A relative produces a purported protective court order and disputes the adult’s capacity. The supplier demands performance; the adult also challenges the terms as unfair.
Code 918–922 governs capacity and consent; 920(2) separately refers to English law for identified situations. Invalidity, protective provisions and unfair terms require separate analysis.
Unfairness alone does not establish incapacity, and diagnosis alone does not settle every contractual issue.
The module does not make the bargain valid. Existing capacity and consent rules, with the controlled 920(2) source, determine enforceability before performance remedies are considered.
CPRA sections 2(2), 2(4), 3–4, 19 and 37; COB sections 13–14 and Schedule 1 items 2–3
Facts: After the cut-off, budget cuts leave the register without its assigned researcher. An annual programme is late, source entries are stale and a correction request remains unanswered. A litigant argues that the relevant retained rule has therefore expired or that English updating has resumed.
Current law does not make the proposed office responsible for this register; ordinary public-law, budgeting and reporting arrangements govern existing institutions.
The available public-law remedy for missed duties and the resources necessary to perform them require separate examination.
In COB, sections 6(2), 23(5), 26(4) and 31(6) prevent administrative failure erasing law or reopening foreign automaticity. Sections 21, 24, 26 and 31 impose identifiable duties; section 29(3) respects appropriations.
COB sections 6(2), 21, 23(5), 24, 26(4), 29(3) and 31(6)
Nineteen documented corrections address interactions and ambiguity in the model. They are a record of design revision, not nineteen court findings.
Problem: Other-enactment priority could defeat the module's express Code substitutions.
Correction: 4(1) and 4(2) preserve constitutional supremacy and special law while making ordinary priority expressly subject to Schedule 1 substitutions.
Problem: Retained law was used too broadly for a companion definition limited to received law.
Correction: 3 now defines applicable domestic law to include the Code, other enactments and preserved received law; cross-references use that broader term.
Problem: A pending-proceedings saving could be mistaken for continuation of the old automatic English update feed.
Correction: 39(5) expressly remains subject to the companion Act's transition and savings.
Problem: Personal-services restriction initially focused too narrowly on employment, intimate services and continuing confidence.
Correction: 19(4) now includes individual personal skill and judgment, addressing a one-off creative commission.
Problem: General agreed-payment enforcement could obscure preserved article 1008 limits on delay in paying money.
Correction: Section 30(8) expressly preserves section 31, Article 1008 and applicable credit and interest controls.
Problem: Cure could delay urgent safety work or proceedings needed to preserve a claim.
Correction: 15(6) expressly preserves 20(2), interim protection and time-preserving proceedings.
Problem: General Crown application could be misread as authorising prohibited performance or execution orders.
Correction: 2(3) expressly preserves Crown Proceedings Act 16 and 20, including indirect relief restrictions.
Problem: A generic statement preserving damages on termination could imply all remaining-term profits automatically follow cancellation.
Correction: 23(5) ties recovery to responsibility, valid contractual compensation provisions and Part 5.
Problem: Rewriting indemnity accounting would add an unnecessary departure from article 1131.
Correction: 35(3) and Schedule 1 preserve 1131 and coordinate it with 1132A–B without duplicate recovery.
Problem: An assurance demand could be futile where inability to perform an essential future obligation is already objectively established.
Correction: 17(4) now covers both clear repudiation and objectively established inability to perform when due. Excused non-performance still does not automatically generate damages.
Problem: Replacement of article 1065 could omit its default prerequisite for an agreed secondary payment.
Correction: 30(1) expressly requires default under 13 before enforcement.
Problem: Section 24 heading said breach although Part 4 may permit termination when damages are excused.
Correction: Heading and 24(1) now apply to Part 4 termination whether or not damages are recoverable; frustration remains separately governed.
Problem: Section 28(4) did not specify which party had been allocated the relevant risk.
Correction: 28(4) now identifies a risk allocated to the claimant; the annotation identifies the causal-contribution formulation as a substantive choice.
Problem: Undefined working days
Correction: Section 24 used twenty and sixty working days without defining the term. Section 4 now excludes Saturdays, Sundays and Saint Lucian public holidays. This is a small but real deadline ambiguity, especially for a correction submitted before a holiday period.
Problem: Historical law outside the generally operative stock
Correction: The first version defined received law by general applicability immediately before the cut-off. A repealed provision could nevertheless govern an older transaction through an existing saving. Sections 16(1)–(3) pointed toward preserving that effect, but section 20's anti-revival wording could invite an unnecessary argument that the older rule had disappeared. New section 16(5) expressly preserves historically saved application even where the rule was no longer generally operative at the cut-off. Section 20(4) is subject to that provision. This does not revive every repealed rule or import later foreign amendments. The person relying on the historical rule still needs to establish the original saving and its reach.
Problem: Monetary formulas could mask delegated foreign lawmaking
Correction: Section 9(5) originally allowed existing formulas to operate on changing data. A litigant might characterise a later UK ministerial increase in a statutory award as merely another number entering a formula. New section 9(6) excludes foreign prescription of legal limits, awards, penalties or eligibility classes, distinguishes market rates and statistics, and denies administrators a power to choose a substitute input. **Residual issue:** an index may be rebased, discontinued or methodologically changed. The bill sends that issue to the existing formula and applicable domestic law. A specific domestic amendment may be needed. It does not promise every external numerical dependency will remain operational indefinitely.
Problem: Appeal review and fresh retrial were insufficiently distinguished
Correction: The first section 17(4) said a later hearing did not select a later source merely because the hearing was later. Read beside the cut-off ceiling and original-judgment rule, that could leave uncertainty about whether a remitted fresh trial used the original-trial version or the pre-cut-off baseline. Revised section 17(4) expressly applies sections 7 and 16 on a fresh determination, subject to binding appellate decisions or directions. Section 17(5) supplies the universal post-cut-off ceiling. Section 17(3) separately governs review of an earlier judgment's correctness. **This is a chosen transition architecture, not a verified existing appellate rule.** It should be put to appellate practitioners before introduction.
Problem: Review-report laying deadline lacked an explicit start
Correction: Section 31 originally required a response within ninety days and laying within twenty sitting days without specifying whether the sitting-day clock ran from the review or the response. Section 31(5) now anchors the latter to publication of the response. Section 31(4) additionally requires reviewer experience, method and material interests to be disclosed.
Problem: General no-regulatory-power language was overbroad
Correction: An early section 5(5) said the Act created no public regulatory power, which could be read against the administrative regulation power in section 30. It now specifies that *continuation of received law* does not itself create an offence, public power or tax right which did not previously exist. Section 30 retains its finite administrative role and bans substantive activation.
This independent research distinguishes current law, interpretation and proposed law. The model bills are by Kevin L. Michel. They have not been enacted or endorsed by Kenny D. Anthony or the Government of Saint Lucia.
Research method, limits and version notes →