Comment – Ingredients, Injunctions and Invoking Force Majeure

Times have been 'interesting', to say the least, for the sugar industry recently, with well-publicised outbreaks of extreme weather affecting crops and prices. But, what about the drinks manufacturers who depend upon sugar - and other crops vulnerable to unforeseen exceptional price increases - as an ingredient in many of their products? Although manufacturers will usually have contracted well in advance for delivery of their requirements, suppliers caught out by crop failures and rising market prices may attempt to invoke force majeure clauses to escape these bargains. Trevor Withane of Allen & Overy LLP considers such attempts and how drinks manufacturers might respond.