Is this email agreement a contract and if so, does breach of contract mean we can end it? Suppose: We received the following email proposal for a new leased line: Please find quote below for leased line Ethernet fibre: 10/100 fibre Ethernet Direct Internet Access (DIA) circuit. Nil installation and £X per month. 20/100 fibre Ethernet Direct Internet Access (DIA) circuit. Nil installation and £X per month. The Ethernet fibre quote includes a managed Cisco 800 series router to terminate the circuit and proactively monitor it, a 24/7/365 support line for use by either you. The circuit is supplied with 8 IP addresses of which 5 are usable as standard. The standard lead-time is 75 working days and this quote is based on a 36 month contract term. All quotes are subject to contract, survey and valid for 30 days. Prices exclude VAT and are billed quarterly in advance. E&amp;OE. We replied with an email simply saying, "We would like to go ahead with the 20/100 option." We paid the service provider for 12 months, during which they provided the leased line but no support line, despite our subsequent request. Does the email chain and subsequent payment and service establish a legally binding contract? And is the failure to provide the support line sufficient grounds for us to terminate the contract?
does the email chain above set out a legally binding contract, would it stand up to the test in a court Generally speaking, yes, unless you signed a "more formal" contract thereafter. The more formal contract would supersede the email chain. Furthermore, the subsequent conduct by both parties evidences the existence of a contract. The fact that you have been provided with the service and that you have been charged for these ~12 months evidences the formation and existence of a contract. is the breach of contract sufficient to give us grounds to terminate the contract? Yes. To substantiate a claim of breach of contract, you will need to provide evidence that the "24/7/365 support line" is missing or unacceptably subpar in that it has caused you losses (such as downtime and consequent impact on your operations), or that such pattern of service disruptions would subject your company to imminent risk of losses if you were forced to stay in the contract for the remaining ~24 months (obviously, you will need to establish that this item or feature is not just incidental to the contract).
This is possibly but not necessarily fine. The data controller (the garage) is responsible for safeguarding your personal data. They must take appropriate safety measures, but this depends a lot on their own risk assessment. For example, to protect the data from being used by employees for their personal purposes, the controller might use organizational measures like a policy “you're not allowed to do that.” Many companies allow employees to use their personal devices for work purposes (BYOD). When the data controller allows this and takes appropriate safety measures, everything is perfectly fine. The company still has to make sure that the data is only processed for legal purses and deleted afterwards. Implementing a BYOD policy in a GDPR compliant manner is difficult but not impossible. A data breach has occurred when the security measures were insufficient and your data was deleted or disclosed without authorization. Your scenario would only be a breach if the company did not have a BYOD policy and the salesman used their personal phone, and arguably then only if that device is also breached. However, do not discount the alternatives: they do have a BYOD policy and the salesman is acting within their instructions the salesman was using a company-controlled device, not their personal phone If you have good reason to believe that your data was mishandled (and these alternatives do not apply), then the GDPR offers you the following remedies: You can of course complain to the data controller, especially if they have a dedicated data protection officer. You can lodge a complaint with a supervision authority, which is the ICO in the UK. They expect you to attempt to resolve your issue with the controller first. The ICO can then decide if they want to investigate the issue. You can sue them for compliance and for actual damages suffered (you have none, though). Note that all of these alternatives are more effort than they are likely worth. In particular, the garage can always correct the problem, e.g. by getting your contact info deleted from the personal device or by creating a retroactive BYOD policy.
Yes, it triggers the GDPR obligations Considerations: Can you surely identify those residing in Europe? In that case you should ask them to sign up again and confirm the consent. A lot of mailing lists are doing just that. Did they previously give consent and you can document it? If so, then you can argue that you have the required consent. Do you have business in Europe? If not then I don't think they would bother to go after you. You could just walk away from the fine. What other personal informastion are you storing? If you know who reside in Europe then you already have more info than just the email. The email address itself wouldn't be much of a documentation issue, SAR or Portability task.
As described, this may be a form of illegal bait-and-switch advertising, but not breach of contract. The contract states the specific vehicle to be sold, which does not match the test-driven car. If the dealer had listed the better car's VIN in the contract but supplied a different car, that would be breach of contract. Whether it is illegal advertisement depends on the representations and disclaimers made by the dealer. To the extent that the dealer supplied indications that there was a difference between the test model and the purchase model, or to the extent that the customer should have known that the test car had features not found in the specific model that the customer believed he was buying and paying for, the dealer was being non-deceptive. To the extent that the dealer holds that selling model X instead of model Y is an &quot;honest mistake&quot; on their part, the dealer was being deceptive (or, was plainly in breach of contract). It's hard to see what &quot;honest mistake&quot; the dealer might have made, but perhaps the mistake was &quot;not being clearer to the customer that they had test-driven a fancier model, not the one that they were actually buying&quot;. The customer's attorney could pursue this matter and either get the better car, or get a better financial deal, but it really hinges on who said / wrote what (and has a more believable story about what was said).
It is the use of a "menace" which creates the crime, not the nature or validity of the demand. That's not correct. You've inadvertently missed the other element of the offence: that it's an "unwarranted demand". A person is guilty of blackmail if, with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes any unwarranted demand with menaces; and for this purpose a demand with menaces is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief— (a) that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand; and (b) that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/21 For example, I may have reasonable grounds under the Consumer Rights Act to demand a refund for a faulty good. It might be sensible to moderate one's language, e.g. "If I do not receive a satisfactory response from you within 30 days of the date of this letter, I intend to issue proceedings against you in the county court without further notice. This may increase your liability for costs." vs. "If I do not receive the money from you within 30 days of the date of this letter I'll take you to the f***ing cleaners, sunshine." But the language doesn't make the demand unwarranted.
The provisions of the credit card account agreement will be governed by Delaware law, except to the extent to North Carolina public policy overrides it. The provisions of the online services agreement will be governed by New York law, except to the extent to North Carolina public policy overrides it. The electronic communications agreement will be governed by the law of the place with the most significant connection to any disputed issues arising under it. It could also be considered to be an extension of the online services agreement rather than a separate agreement. UDAP is an acronym referring the state deceptive trade practices acts. The unfair act involves non-receipt of paperless billing statements. Even with this level of detail, I don't believe it is possible to know in advance which of the agreements is implicated and which state's laws will be held to apply (or if the differences between the laws of the candidate states is even material on the issue in question). These issues are decided on a case by case basis when there is a mishmash of facts and the outcomes are not terribly predictable. It also isn't obvious that there is a provision covering the conduct in question in any of the three potentially relevant states. The Delaware Deceptive Trade Practices Act doesn't appear to clearly apply to financial services at all. New York's application to financial services is quite narrow and subject to an exception for conduct in conformity with federal law. A failure to provide an invoice, without more, isn't necessarily a deceptive trade practice at all. All in all, there isn't a straightforward or easy answer to this question that can be reached from the information provided.
She could refer this to the Cyrpriot Commissioner for Personal Data Protection, but I would try contacting the company first and telling them to remove her Personal Data from the public website - or delete it completely. If they don't give a satisfactory response, mention the CPDP. This could lead to the data being removed within a few days, while an official complaint is likely to take longer. She may have grounds for legal action which would result in the company being compelled to take down the data (or to close the website), but if your friend is thinking in terms of compensation, what compensation would she seek? If she can demonstrate and quantify financial losses that occurred specifically because of this disclosure there might be a possibility, but I suspect that would be difficult to prove.
Don't do it. It is of course breach of contract when you signed a contract with no intention to fulfil it. However, you are talking about Germany. German employers take a very dim view of this. While a UK employer would say "good riddance" and do nothing, many German employers would see that as a personal insult. It's something that you just don't do in Germany. There's a good chance that they will do what they can to make you miserable if you do this. For example, inform authorities that you just cancelled your contract which may get a visa cancelled. Or tell the company that you want to start with, which will also take a very dim view of this. Or sue you for damages, not because they want to get the money, but to make you miserable. On the other hand, if they send you a contract, and you sign it, you have a contract.