Research Paper on:
United Kingdom's Doctrine of Consideration and How It Has Evolved

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
idea of a contract. These govern the way that trading takes place and how agreements are formed and enforces. Sir William Anson defines a contract as "a legally binding agreement  made between two or more parties. By which rights are acquired by one or more acts or forbearances on the part of the other or others" (Barker and Padfield, 1994).  However, to be valid in UK law there are certain elements that need to be present for the contract to be valid. These are generally defined as offer, acceptance and  consideration, accompanied by an intent to create legal relations. Of these the doctrine of consideration may be seen as the most controversial, as without valid consideration there is not a  valid contract. However, when we look at this more carefully we ma see that n reality there is a more flexible approach being adopted, and consideration is becoming of lesser  importance. Firstly we need to consider what we mean by consideration, and then we may look at how it is developing and also how related issues such as the  doctrine of privity are bringing about change. The traditional definition of consideration can be found in the case of with the case of Currie v Misa (1875) LR 10 Ex  153, where it is stated; "a valuable consideration, in the case if the law, may consist either in some right, interest profit or benefit accruing to one party, or some  forbearance, determent , loss or responsibility given, suffered or undertaken by the other" (McKendrick, 1998). However even this can be seen as  controversial, as the orthodox interpretation has been questioned by Professor Atiyah (1986). He argues that there is no real doctrine of consideration that can be clamed to be based upon