Privity of contract

Privity of contract is a common law principle holding that a contract cannot confer rights or impose obligations on anyone who is not a party to it, so that a third party generally cannot enforce an agreement even when it was made for that third party's benefit. The doctrine developed during the nineteenth century alongside the requirement of consideration, through cases such as Price v Easton in 1833, which held that a non-party lacks standing to sue, Tweddle v Atkinson, which reinforced privity through the consideration requirement, and Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre v Selfridge, which further developed the principle; it also shaped negligence law, since Winterbottom v Wright in 1842 held a manufacturer not liable to an injured consumer, before Judge Cardozo's 1916 decision in MacPherson v Buick Motor Co created product liability in tort so as to bypass privity's limits. Long recognized common law exceptions include collateral contracts, trusts, covenants running with land, agency, and third party insurance, and the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 in England and Wales, along with similar legislation in Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong, now lets a third party enforce a contract term when expressly named or clearly intended as a beneficiary. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/