A 2024 symposium was held at Selwyn to mark the 25th anniversary of a landmark statute in the law of contract, and the resulting edited collection is now in print.

The Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 at 25, co-edited by Selwyn’s Vice-Master Professor Janet O’Sullivan and her faculty colleagues Professor Louise Merrett and Mr Will Day was published in February 2026 by Hart Publishing.

The 1999 Act fundamentally changed English contract law. Before it the traditional common law ‘privity’ rule was that only the parties to a contract could gain enforceable rights from it, even if the parties expressly made the contract for the benefit of a third party. 

The Act changed that, giving third party beneficiaries the right to enforce contracts made for their benefit, if the statutory requirements are met.  Initially, the legal profession responded cautiously, tending to exclude the operation of the 1999 Act when drafting contracts. However by its silver anniversary it is a well-established aspect of the law of contract.

A symposium held at Selwyn in September 2024, generously sponsored by leading City of London law firm Slaughter and May, brought together a mix of academics, judges of the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and High Court, barristers (including Selwyn fellow Sarah Fraser Butlin KC) and solicitors, to consider the theoretical and practical significance of the 1999 Act after 25 years.  Their papers became the chapters in this edited collection, which examines the operation of the 1999 Act in fields as diverse as employment, property, construction, shipping, insurance, banking and many other areas.

Overall, it is a seminal reference work for all practitioners engaging with the 1999 Act, as well as scholars and students of the law of contract.