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Contract and Commercial Law Act 2017

Contracts legislation - Contractual remedies - Power of court to grant relief

49: Recovery of damages

You could also call this:

“When someone breaks a contract, you can ask for money to make things fair”

If someone cancels a contract or gets help from the court under section 43, they can still ask for money if the other person lied, ended the contract unfairly, or broke the rules of the contract. This is called ‘damages’.

When deciding how much money to give, the court will think about any help that was already given under section 43. They will subtract this from the total amount.

There are some other rules in sections 34, 35, and 50 to 53 that might change how this works.

If the court tells one person to pay money to another person because of section 43, they can use this payment to reduce how much they owe in damages.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM6844121.

Topics:
Business > Fair trading Money and consumer rights > Consumer protection
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"Who can ask for help with contract problems"

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Part 2 Contracts legislation
Contractual remedies: Power of court to grant relief

49Recovery of damages

  1. A party to a contract is not prevented by the cancellation of the contract, or by the granting of relief under section 43, from recovering damages for a misrepresentation or the repudiation or breach of the contract by another party to the contract.

  2. However, the value of any relief granted under section 43 must be taken into account in assessing those damages.

  3. Subsection (1) is subject to sections 34, 35, and 50 to 53.

  4. Any sum ordered to be paid by a party to the contract to any other party to the contract under section 43(3) may be set off against any damages payable by the party to that other party.

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