As a publicity stunt, an America's Cup sponsor challenges a media personality to walk from Cape Reinga to Auckland for a $5,000 prize. The challenge is taken up, but with the City of Sails in the walker's sights the sponsor, angered by comments made during television coverage of the event, announces the withdrawal of the offer. What is the position under the law of contract? A recent commercial case led the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia into an extensive exploration of revocation in the context of a unilateral contract. The author analyses and counters the Court's reasons for denying that any substantive right would have been breached in the hypothetical described above. The article then turns to the complex remedial issues involved, and concludes with a more wide-ranging discussion of conditionality in differing contractual contexts.
