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Don’t Miss These Important Facts on Executive Agreement

Don't Miss These Important Facts on Executive Agreement

Legal Context for Executive Agreements
 
 
Despite the name, an executive agreement is not meaningfully an aspect of contract law, at least according to the terms and conditions through which this legal category is usually understood, but rather of Constitutional law. More specifically, the “executive agreement” concept in U.S. law pertains to such varied matters as the ability to exercise control over the foreign policy of the country; more specifically in terms of its relationship to other nations through treaties and other documents and mechanisms and to the separation of powers between the different branches of the Federal U.S. Government.
 
 
This last concept constitutes a primary consideration undertaken by the U.S. Constitution, and accordingly applicable to the theories and debates as continue to this day, over the application of the United States’ foundational and essential, yet broad and ambiguous, document. 
 
 
Application of Executive Agreements in U.S. Law
 
 
To further illuminate these points, it might be noted that an executive agreement is a treaty passed by the President of the United States with the government of another national jurisdiction and without the consent of the legislature of the United States. Presidents are said to have used the so-called “discretion” vested in their office when they make the determination of enacting an executive agreement and thus bypassing the necessity of relying upon the power of Congress. Moreover, an executive agreement could applicably be contrasted with a legislative-executive agreement. 

How To Terminate An Offer

How To Terminate An Offer

There are several circumstances under which an agreement or an offer may be terminated. The first way to terminate an offer is to attempt to change the offer. Any attempt to change an offer is known as a counter-offer. A counter-offer is a termination of an offer by the offeree. If a counter-offer is presented and subsequently rejected, the execution of the original offer cannot be compelled by a court of law. Unless the counter-offer contains a provision specifically authorizing it, any previous offer becomes invalidated.
 
 
An offeror may terminate an offer if the offer contains a time period during which the offer must be accepted. If the offer does not contain a time period after which the offer becomes invalidated, then the courts commonly hold that the offer is invalid after a "reasonable" amount of time, but never specifically states what that time period is. In the event an offeror rescinds the period of time for which they had previously agreed to keep an offer open, the offeree can sue for breach of contract.
 
 
Contract negotiations are often lengthy processes. If during the negotiations one of the parties discovers that the information being discussed in the negotiations is substantively different than as presented during the negotiation process but fails to disclose this information, it may serve as grounds to invalidate the other party's agreement.

Option Contracts Explained

Option Contracts Explained

Option contracts are contracts in which the offeror, or promisor, is limited in their ability to withdraw or rescind a contract. An option contract is an important element of a unilateral contract. Traditionally a unilateral contract is only formed when the action under consideration is completed. This is an issue because it provides no protection to an offeree who has completed the partial performance of the contracted action before the offeror withdraws the contract under discussion. 
An option contract transforms a unilateral contract into a bilateral one because it provides some guarantee to any party providing agreement to the contract that their actions will receive compensation. The compensation may begin immediately after the action is begun or may only come into effect once a significant portion of the work is completed. The party which has engaged an action leading to the partial performance of the contract may be able to claim detrimental reliance upon the belief that the offeror would provide payment.
For instance, Mike hired Steve to paint the walls and ceiling of his room for $100. Mike told Steve to leave after Steve had finished painting the four walls and was in the middle of painting the ceiling.
Under a traditional unilateral contract, Steve would not be entitled to any of the $100 because the money was provided as consideration for the completion of the task. Steve, however, could compel Mike through promissory estoppel to compensate him for the partial performance of the task. Steve undertook the actions under a detrimental reliance that Mike would allow him to complete to task.
Option contracts are usually found in real estate. Real estate option contracts exist primarily for the benefit of the buyer. The buyer in a real estate option contract is allowed time to secure financing, to arrange for a contractor to examine the land, and to investigate relevant zoning laws governing the property.
Real estate option contracts do not oblige the buyer to grant agreement to the seller’s offer. Agreement in real estate contracts can be withheld by a buyer looking to make money off the land. Real estate option contracts often have a short period of time before the terms laid out in the contract lapse.

End User License Agreement

End User License Agreement

An end user license agreement, often referred simply as EULA for short, is a license that is included with most types of computer software. The end user license agreement essentially grants the end user, or buyer of the software, the right to use that particular software in a particular way. The end user license agreement is therefore a legally binding contract between the end user, or consumer, who will agree to specific terms of use and regulations imposed by the software company or producer, and the maker of that software. 
The contract will oftentimes be presented in paper form, though the common practice has been to introduce the end user license agreement in the software itself, which will appear the first time the software is loaded into a particular computer prompting the end user to read and agree to the terms of using the particular product. The end user license agreement is provided by the software companies themselves, which does not require the end user to have to procure any kind of document as a contingency.

100% of Facts About Trade Agreements You Need to Know

100% of Facts About Trade Agreements You Need to Know

A trade agreement is a type of agreement that exists between two or more countries in order to govern the trading procedures that exist between these states. Within the domain of international trade, there are a range of tariffs and prohibitions which limit trade between certain countries.
 
 
Trade agreements can function to counteract these barriers and promote trade between these countries. Limiting trade barriers is advantageous for the United States economy, as it allows for the exportation of more goods. It also helps to benefit participating countries, as the United States can import an increased quantity of goods from these countries, and subsequently sell these goods within the United States. The details of a free trade agreement will vary from one agreement to another. 
 
 
Currently, the United States is engaged in a free trade agreement with a number of different countries. For example, the U.S. has established a free trade agreement with Australia, Jordan, Panama, South Korea, and Singapore, just to name a few.
 
 
Perhaps the most widely known of the existing free trade agreements is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The North American Free Trade Agreement is an agreement that exists between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. The initial stages of the agreement occurred between the United States and Canada, and subsequently, Mexico entered into the contract. NAFTA limits the trade barriers that existed between these three countries and encourages open trade.

Read These Requirements of an Offer

Read These Requirements of an Offer

In order to accurately understand the concept of agreement it is crucial to understand when a valid offer has been made. An offer is made when a party, known as the offeror, presents terms of a contract to another party. The party that receives the offer is known as the offeree. If the offeree accepts the offer, the two parties are considered to be in agreement. 
In contrast to offers are “invitations to treat.” Invitations to treat are not offers. Invitations to treat can happen in a number of ways. Some of the most common include the display of goods in a store window, an auction without reserve, the solicitation of competitive bids, or advertisements for goods.
Except in specific circumstances, an auction does not constitute a legally binding offer and agreement process. An auction can be held with or without reserve. An auction without reserve is the rarer of the two kinds. An action without reserve means that the item will automatically be sold to the highest bidder regardless of the price.
An auction with reserve, or reserve auction, is an auction in which the person putting the item up for auction has stated a price below which they are unwilling to part with the item or circumstances under which they “reserve” the right to not complete the exchange of goods.
Auctions present interesting situations when considering offers and agreements. In an auction without reserve, the person placing the goods up for auction is obligated to accept the final bid. Each bid during the auction represents a new offer. Each higher bid that the auctioneer accepts means that the offer represented by the previous bid is invalidated.
During a reserve auction this can create some complications. If the person placing the goods up for auction decides against accepting the highest bid, they are left without an alternative. Even if the person would rather accept the second highest bid represented, they are unable to do so because the higher bid caused the previous bid to become voidable.
Advertisements are not usually considered to be offers because they may oblige the person creating the advertisement to sell more goods than they possess. As a result, an agreement cannot be reached as the result of an individual responding to an advertisement. Advertisements are technically considered “invitations to treat.” However, there are circumstances in which an advertisement can constitute an offer. 
The Nineteenth Century case of Carlill v. Carbolic Smoke Ball Company in England involved a promise by Carbolic Smoke Ball Company to pay £100 to anyone who used their product but still developed influenza, which their product was claimed to prevent. As guarantee of their claim, the advertisement said that the company had deposited £1000 in an account to pay anyone who caught the flu. The advertisement was considered to be a unilateral contract. 
The agreement by Louisa Carlill was twofold. The first part of the agreement can be seen in her purchase of the smoke ball and the second element of agreement was her continued use of the ball. The English Court of Appeals ruled that the advertisement became a legally binding contract on several grounds.
The most relevant part of the ruling was that while an offer existed between the company and the entire world, a contract only existed with those individuals who had taken the actions to accept the terms of the offer. Acceptance in this case is interchangeable with agreement. This case also cemented the idea that conduct was sufficient to convey agreement with the terms of the advertisement’s offer.
Agreements to agree are not considered legally binding. These legal documents only reveal that the concerned parties are considering a future contract. In and of themselves, an agreement to agree does not mandate action on the part of either party. Agreements to agree arise when two parties are discussing an event involving future transactions which are still in progress.
A statement of future intent is not a legally binding contract. It only indicates an agreement by the two parties involved in the negotiation to attempt to form a future contract. An agreement to agree is not binding if the matter under discussion is still in dispute. An agreement to agree may be considered a contract, however, if the material terms of agreement are present. 
Agreements to agree can become legally binding agreements if they contain all the typical elements of a contract. If, however, an agreement to agree merely records the terms that have been discussed in preliminary negotiations or they can be given the full weight of a contract to which both parties have agreed. Agreements to agree are sometimes known as letters of intent. Whether the document is titled an agreement to agree or a letter of intent, the legal significance of the terms is equal.
In order for agreement to occur, the offeree must have an intention to enter into the contract. Intention can be interpreted by action or by verbal acceptance of the terms provided by the offeror. Intention also extends to the offeror. The offeror’s intentions are rarely subject to question. 
Intention to form a contract is one of the requirements to form a contract. Intention to be legally bound by a contract does not exist during the initial negotiation of a contract. Courts generally do not assign intention to either party by their interpretation of the parties’ statements of future intent or by agreements to agree.

Quick Overview on the Credit Agreement

Quick Overview on the Credit Agreement

Definition of a Credit Agreement

As a commonly applicable feature and function of U.S. contract law, a credit agreement can be expected to comprise of the contract drawn up between a bank, or financial institution of comparable resources and functions, and another legal entity designated as the recipient of a financial loan from that institution. As such, credit agreements are allowed for under U.S. contract law, as well as the contract laws used in other legal jurisdictions, in order to allow for the availability of credit issued to individuals and organizations. 


Provisions of a Credit Agreement
As with other kinds of contracts also put into effect in a commercial or financial context, a credit agreement can be expected to establish the legally binding conditions which will govern the functions allowed for or prohibited between the two parties to the contract, as comprise in this case of the bank furnishing the loan and the individual or organization accepting that loan. Perhaps most importantly, the interest charged on the loan will generally be affixed through the provisions set forth in the credit agreement.
The composition of a credit agreement might further function toward specifying the point, if any, when the loan must be repaid in full to the lending bank and thus when the legal relationship between the bank and loan recipient will come to an end, though often this will not be found to apply. 

Potential Settings for Credit Agreements
Credit cards and mortgages are some of the financial instruments potentially subject to credit agreements. 

What You Didn’t Know About Non Compete Agreement

What You Didn't Know About Non Compete Agreement

A non-compete agreement is a type of agreement contract created by employers, which prohibits employees from being employed by competitors or similar companies. Prior to working for a company, an individual may be required to sign a non-compete agreement. 
This agreement will usually outline how long the agreement lasts and to what geographical location the agreement applies. After an individual signs a non-compete agreement, he/she will not be permitted to work for competitors of the company.
There has been an extensive amount of debate surrounding non-compete agreements. For example, it prohibits an individual from seeking employment in a field that he/she has experience in, thereby significantly limiting his/her employment opportunities. These agreements are also very difficult to enforce. 
An employer would need to know where his/her past employees were seeking employment, and subsequently take the legal action necessary to prevent them from being employed in these locations.
Despite the many concerns regarding non-compete agreements and the flaws associated with this type of contract, there are practical reasons for using them. For example, some companies maintain confidential client lists to which employees have access. In addition to these customer lists, employees also have access to marketing strategies, new products, and additional confidential information. If a former employee chooses to acquire employment with a competitor, he/she may reveal this information, thereby adversely impacting a company.
A non-compete agreement is considered to be a legally binding contract, as long as the conditions outlined within the agreement are reasonable. 

Important Details on Service Level Agreement

Important Details on Service Level Agreement

Contract Law Context for Service Level Agreements
 
 
A service level agreement (SLA) is a kind of contract which sets the understood and legally bearing conditions, or level, for a certain specific kind of commercially offered and accessed service.
 
 
As with other kinds of contracts also passed in the commercial and business world, a service level agreement will necessarily involve at least two entities signatory to the contract and thus subject to its provisions, thereby establishing a legal relationship, as could be further used, upon claimed instances of violation or illegal modification thereof, to furnish the grounds for a process of civil litigation transacted in the U.S. legal system. 
 
 
Identifying Service Level Agreements
 
 
A service level agreement must necessarily be identified in order for the correct application of U.S. contract law, in terms of those contracts passed which specifically designate one party to the document as being the customer and the other as being the entity furnishing a particular service to that customer. A third party contract, necessarily, is thus precluded from the language considered as applying to service level agreements. 
 
 
Subjects for Service Level Agreements
 
 
Some of the functions which might be covered under service level agreements can be expected to comprise categories such as:
 
 
    Priority
 
 
    Obligation
 
 
    Guarantee
 
 
    Warranty
 
 
Different Service Level Agreement Types
 
 
A service level agreement might potentially comprise customer-based, service-based, multi-level, corporate-level, customer-level, and service-level service level agreements, as legal measures commonly applicable in such cases. 

Termination by Law At A Glance

Termination by Law At A Glance

There are several ways in which an offer can be terminated. The first way to terminate an irrevocable offer is for the offerree to reject the offer, either by denying it or by presenting a counter-offer. The second way is for a period of time laid out in the original offer to expire. If the offer states that it must be accepted by a certain time, but it is not, then the offer to provide agreement to the contract is considered terminated.

An irrevocable offer, or any other offer for that matter, can also become unenforceable in several other circumstances. If the party which offered the contract dies or becomes legally barred from entering into a contract, for instance due to mental incompetence, it will be deemed unenforceable. A contract can become void if a law is passed that would cause the contract to be contrary to statute. 

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