What Is The Softx Case An Example Of A Unilateral Mistake

Parampreet Singh Bhatia
Professor D.Aplevich
ECE 290
28th January 2018
Assignment 1
Case SoftX The SoftX case is an example of a unilateral mistake. This mistake was made by one party (SoftX) in the calculation of costs that would be required to finish the project. The problem encountered was that the bid was irrevocable and due to this the city refused the withdrawal of offer upon realisation of the mistake made. The problem that arises is that because the contract is irrevocable is SoftX obliged to complete the project even though they would be taking a $100,000 loss to do it? Another problem that arises is that if it is right for the city to sue the company for the difference in the two bid even though they did not concur any loss due to
We saw that the case revolved around whether the acceptance of a call for tenders for a construction job could constitute a binding contract. From this case we see that the in many cases the submission to a call for tenders constitutes a contract separate from the eventual contract. This case led to the change of the tendering process fundamentally in Canada. In this case the acceptor of the contract was to make a deposit unlike the SoftX case. Ron Engineering realised that they had made a bid much lower than they intended and wanted to get the offer revoked and the deposit back. In return the contractor turned the case around and sued Ron Engineering for the difference between the two lowest bids. Eventually the court had said that Ron Engineering was to get its deposit back and the claim that the difference between the two bids was
The Supreme court held that the tender process involved two contracts. The first being a unilateral contract arising automatically upon submission of the tender and the second being the contract awarded upon the tender’s acceptance. This means that if both parties accept the first contract they are obliged to enter the second contract. The case here is different as the conditions under which the first contract was accepted (project would take $600,000 to finish) was different from the conditions for when the second contract was to be accepted (project would take $700,000 to finish) as SoftX did not realise what the project would cost when placing the bid. This was due to a honest mistake from SoftX as they had good faith and intentions. The contract should be ruled out as the first contract (tender) was accepted taking in different terms and conditions than later realised. Hence SoftX should not be obliged to take the second part of the contract on different terms and