As someone who owns or manages a business, you probably treat contracts as serious agreements. Unfortunately, not everyone who signs a contract will follow through with the promises they make in that document.
When an employee, a supplier or another business fails to uphold the terms of the contract, they can put you in an unpleasant position. You may have no choice but to take legal action against them, especially if they made a material breach of the contract that had negative repercussions for your business. When you file a lawsuit against someone for breach of contract, what can you ask the courts to do?
You can ask that the courts uphold or enforce the contract
In some circumstances, you may still need to move forward with the agreements in the original contract for the benefit of your business. Perhaps someone failed to deliver products to you or stopped halfway through completing the service for your business.
A court order requiring that the other party fulfill their obligations can help your business by addressing the breach and allowing you to move forward as you had planned before the other party failed to uphold their end of the contract.
You could ask the courts to cancel the contract
If you have a complex contract that has obligations for both you and the other party but the other party has materially failed to uphold their end of the agreement, you may no longer want to do business with them.
You may want to hire someone else, find a new supplier or otherwise cut your losses by ending your professional relationship with the other party. You can potentially use a breach of contract as grounds to have the courts throw out or invalidate the entire contract agreement.
You can ask the courts for compensation if there were losses
Planning and logistics play a critical role in the financial success of a business. When another party fails to do something they’ve contractually promised to do, you may have materials that wind up wasted, staff hours that are unproductive or other business losses.
Provided that you can show the amount of the losses and connect them directly to the breach by the other party, you may be able to ask the courts for a financial award to offset the damage done by the other party breaking their contractual promises. The outcome of the breach and your hopes for the other party will inform which approach is best for the situation.