[6] BP could have sought leave to appeal the decision to the High Court of Australia[7] or to the Privy Council,[8] but did not do so.

A reading of the whole of the agreement leads, in my opinion, to the finding that it contemplates that [BP Refinery] will continuously occupy the site and therefore be liable for rates.

The time has long passed when agreements, even those under seal, were isolated from the matrix of facts in which they were set and interpreted purely on internal linguistic considerations.

"[9] Their Lordships do not think it necessary to review exhaustively the authorities on the implication of a term in a contract which the parties have not thought fit to express.

In their view, for a term to be implied, the following conditions (which may overlap) must be satisfied: The test for the implications of terms was not controversial, citing three well known cases for its authority In applying these principles, the majority took into account the surrounding circumstances, including that: The majority held that the term found by the Supreme Court of Victoria, that the agreement would end once BP ceased to be liable to pay rates on the property, was not necessary to give business efficacy to the Rating Agreement and that it was wholly unreasonable and inequitable to limit the ability of the BP group to make changes in its corporate structure.

[He then quoted the observations of Scrutton LJ in Reigate, and continued] [I]t is not enough to show that had the parties foreseen the eventuality which in fact occurred they would have wished to make provision for it, unless it can also be shown either that there was only one contractual solution or that one of several possible solutions would without doubt have been preferred ...[19]The criterion of "necessity" has been described as "elusive" and "somewhat protean".