Overview

Is an email acceptance of a contractual offer effective when it arrives or at the time when the offeror or could reasonably be expected to have read it? In the case of Thomas & anr v BPE Solicitors in February 2010, this question faced Blair J, a question he admitted was not a straightforward one, and did not appear to be settled by authority.

The issue arose in the context of a professional negligence dispute over whether a share purchase transaction had been completed or not on a particular day. An email had been sent between solicitors acting for the respective parties at 6pm on a Friday evening before a bank holiday weekend.

The defendant solicitors submitted that the email was not effective from the moment it was received because it was sent after working hours, and it could not have been effective until it came to the recipient’s eye on the Tuesday morning. The claimant, however, submitted that the email was effective from 6pm on Friday evening by analogy with the postal rule (i.e effective at the moment of dispatch).

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