Agent and principal relationships with third parties

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Practice notes

Agent and principal relationships with third parties

Published by a ��ɫ�� Commercial expert

Practice notes

This Practice Note deals with the relationships arising between principals, agents and third parties with whom the agent deals on the principal’s behalf. It considers the principal’s liability for its agent, agent’s authority including remedies for breach of authority, fraud and misrepresentation, and the notions of disclosed and undisclosed principal.

Principal’s liability for acts of agent

A principal is normally liable for all acts of an agent within the agent’s authority, whether responsibility arises in contract or in tort. Authority means the agent’s actual, apparent (ostensible) or usual (customary) authority. For more information, see Practice Notes: Scope and authority of the agent and Forming enforceable contracts—agent's authority to contract.

An agent’s authority is conferred by its principal and it is important to note at the outset that the ability to bind a principal in contract is not necessarily determinative of an agency relationship: indeed, in many instances, an agent will not have the right to bind its principal and this is only one of many restrictions that a principal may apply to an agent’s authority.

Jurisdiction(s):

United Kingdom

Key definition:

Third parties definition

What does Third parties mean?

If a service allows the placement of cookies by third parties, they should be named and information should be given about the purposes for which those cookies will be used As explained in Clear and comprehensive information, third parties given access to any cookies must also be appropriately identified.

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