Common law of contract
Offer, acceptance, consideration and intention to create legal relations. Most disputes turn on these basics, not on exotic doctrines. If the foundations are not right, nothing else will save the deal.
Drafting, reviewing and negotiating the commercial contracts that build your business. Straightforward services agreements, complex multi-party outsourcing deals, SaaS terms, T&Cs, NDAs. Senior advice from Peter Lumley-Savile, working with clients across the UK.
The commercial contract is where a deal becomes a relationship. Get it right and everyone moves forward. Get it wrong and arguments follow for years.
Plus Legal is a specialist commercial contract lawyer based in London and working with clients across the UK. Whether you are a founder signing your first services agreement, a scale-up negotiating a platform deal, or an in-house team needing overflow support on a complex outsourcing arrangement, you work directly with Peter. No juniors. No handoffs. No paralegals sent to do the thinking.
This page is a plain-English guide to commercial contracts in UK law — what they cover, the laws that shape them, the things businesses regularly get wrong, and how Peter approaches a new instruction. If any of it lands, book a consultation and we will work out what you actually need.
Every commercial matter sits somewhere on this map. We handle the full lifecycle — from drafting a new template to reviewing a signed agreement that has gone sideways — and everything in between.
Dedicated deep-dive pages for some of these topics are on their way. In the meantime, they all sit inside the work we do here.
UK commercial contract law rests on the common law and a small handful of statutes. Most disputes turn on the basics. These are the sources that shape nearly every deal Peter advises on.
Offer, acceptance, consideration and intention to create legal relations. Most disputes turn on these basics, not on exotic doctrines. If the foundations are not right, nothing else will save the deal.
Imply terms of satisfactory quality, fitness for purpose and reasonable skill and care into commercial deals. They can be excluded — but only in plain, conspicuous words and subject to the test of reasonableness.
Controls exclusion and limitation clauses between businesses. Liability caps that look aggressive on paper can be unenforceable at court. The drafting needs to pass the reasonableness test.
Governs B2C terms and is often relevant for ecommerce, subscription and digital-product businesses. Unfair terms are not enforceable. Transparency and prominence matter as much as content.
Lets a third party enforce a term that benefits them. Routinely excluded in commercial contracts — but the exclusion should be a conscious choice, not a boilerplate accident.
Statutory interest on late payment between businesses, plus a fixed sum per invoice and reasonable recovery costs. A useful lever when invoices go quiet.
Electronic signatures are valid for the overwhelming majority of UK commercial contracts. A few exceptions remain (some property and trust instruments). Most deals sign cleanly online.
Shapes what happens when pre-contract statements turn out to be wrong. Entire-agreement and non-reliance clauses are the commercial response — drafting matters.
Six clauses that cause most of the arguments Peter sees. If any of these are vague in a contract you are about to sign, slow down.
Too high and the other side will not sign. Too low and a single claim wipes out the value of the deal. A cap that equals last-year fees can be trivially low on a mid-life subscription. Negotiate it in parallel with price.
Who can exit, when, on what notice, and what happens to fees, IP, data and goodwill on the way out. The end of the contract tells you more than the start does. Read it first.
Easy to miss, expensive to ignore. A twelve-month contract that auto-renews on sixty days' notice is a seventy-two-month commitment if nobody diaries it.
Default positions often surprise clients, especially in bespoke development. In UK law, a contractor often owns what they create unless there is a written assignment. Paper it before the work starts, not after.
Silence here is painful when things go wrong. Pick the law you understand, the courts that will actually enforce, and the combination that fits where the assets and counterparties sit.
People negotiate the body and sign the schedules. Service levels, pricing, acceptance criteria, scope — the details that matter most all live in the back. Flip the order you read the contract in.
Taken from more than a thousand contracts. Nothing flashy. Quietly saves money and arguments.
A clear scope kills eighty per cent of disputes. If the scope is fuzzy, the contract will be. Do the commercial work first; the drafting follows.
Exit tells you more about a contract than entry does. Work through what happens on termination, insolvency and dispute before you agree to the up-front price.
They are part of the same deal. A lower price for broader liability is a bad trade you will feel in year three. A balanced set of three is nearly always reachable.
If a clause is boilerplate, check it still fits this deal. Limitation periods, jurisdiction, third-party rights and notice clauses are where inherited language bites later.
Signed, dated, unmarked. Every time. The first thing Peter asks for in a dispute is the final version. You will want it in year five.
Plus Legal is based in London and works with clients across the UK. The commercial contract work below is a fair cross-section of who the page is for.
First customer contracts, founder agreements, reseller deals, the contract templates the business will use for years.
SaaS and platform terms, partner and distribution agreements, material services deals, contract estate reviews at funding or growth.
Overflow support on complex matters, senior specialist input on a named deal, fixed-fee contract review programmes.
Procurement-driven contracts, framework agreements, professional services engagements and cross-entity deals.
Every engagement is scoped clearly up front and priced on a basis that suits the matter. No open-ended hourly bills. No surprises at the end. Most commercial contract work falls into one of four pricing models.
Peter is based in Spain and delivers contract work remotely for clients across the UK. In-person meetings are arranged when the matter calls for them. The firm is registered and regulated in England and Wales (SRA) at 20 Wenlock Road, London N1 7GU.
Guides, commentary and practical pieces on the contract work this page covers. The first articles are on the way.
A plain-English guide to the clauses that matter most in a software-as-a-service agreement — from acceptance to liability to exit.
Publishing Q2 2026The recurring blind spots in first commercial contracts. Where the risk hides, why it hides there, and how to fix it in a single pass.
Publishing Q2 2026When a non-disclosure is the right tool, when a confidentiality schedule is, and when neither is doing the work you think it is.
Publishing Q2 2026Commercial contracts sit at the middle of everything. These are the neighbouring practice areas where the same deals often touch down.
SaaS, platform terms, data, ecommerce.
03Licensing, ownership, confidentiality.
04Contract disputes, mediation, strategy.
05Fintech, insurance, banking, regulated.
06Content, licensing, distribution, rights.
Send Peter the contract, the draft, or just the situation. He will tell you what the real issue is and what the right scope of work looks like. A conversation costs nothing.