Rights to accept a settlement offer?

[Jackisin]

Hi,

A company offered me a settlement three weeks ago, by phone. I made a counter offer and heard nothing after this, for three weeks.

Yesterday they called me, told me the counter offer was rejected, and that they were not going to make nay further offers and we should go to trial.

I have now told them by email I accept their original offer, and consider that is it is still there to accept as they have not revoked the original offer.

Does this sound right? Want to double check my rights here.

Thanks,

Jack

[Jackisin]

Anyone?

[R0b]

Their offer doesn't exist anymore, you rejected that when you made a counter offer.

When you make a counter offer, you are effectively rejecting what's on the table and instead making a fresh offer. Unless the company makes the same offer, they are not legally bound by it.

However, if you do issue proceedings, it may be that, depending on what you are claiming, the company could make the same offer as before because it's cheaper to settle than to spend time and resources going all the way to court.

[Jackisin]

My understanding was that it was open to be revoked after I made a counter offer, but it had to be revoked if they wanted to cancel my right to accept it?

Also, the counter offer was in fact an offer to settle the current claim for what they had offered, but also for them to settle an outstanding complain which has not yet been litigated.

So technically, my offer was to sort out all issues, as opposed to just the current issue before the Courts.

[R0b]

First of all, You shouldn't mix and match your claims; in other words, if you are dealing with one dispute, don't throw in other issues into the mix unless you have been dealing with them from the start. It's just not good practice and can be confusing.

Second, an offer is open for acceptance unless it is revoked or is time limited. The moment you make a counter offer, you are rejecting their offer and instead presenting a fresh offer to them whereby the company can choose to accept, reject or make a further counter offer. Your situation appears to mimic the well-known case of Hyde v Wrench (you should google it). The Defendant offered to sell the farm to the Claimant, who was the buyer, for £1,000. The Claimant then counter-offered with £950, which was rejected and then the Claimant tried to accept the original offer. The court had held that the counter offer had rejected and the original offer was terminated.

Regardless of the contents of the counter offer, you nevertheless made it and in turn rejected what the company had originally offered.

[Jackisin]

Sorry should have added that I conidsred their offer part 36 unless they stated otherwise. They did not. All over the phone, at their insistence.

[R0b]

Sorry I am not following

[Jackisin]

It was a part 36 offer to settle as per cpr.

https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/pr...l/rules/part36

[R0b]

Whilst Part 36 offers have their own stipulations set out in the CPR than offers generally made under common law, as far as I am aware, the fundamental rule of settlement is that counter offers operates to displace the original offer. Therefore the original Part 36 offer would not be capable of being accepted.

I'm not aware of your situation being tested in court, but I do recall a couple of cases having the above effect but in reverse i.e. a P36 counter offer rejects a common law offer.