Commercial and Contract Law Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic | Practical Law
The outbreak of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) originating in Wuhan, China, has rapidly spread to many countries throughout the world, including Canada and the United States. As a major trading nation, Canadian companies are directly or indirectly affected by the pandemic. It may, for example, result in disruption of the supply chain, delaying supplies to Canadian companies and, in turn, performance of their delivery obligations. This Legal Update considers, from a Canadian common law perspective, the contractual and commercial issues resulting from the epidemic. Businesses should not assume that it is easy to invoke the outbreak of COVID-19 as an excuse for non-performance.