Alexander Barton was the managing director of a company, Landmark Corporation Ltd., whose main business was property development, its projects passing through 'Paradise Waters (Sales) Pty Ltd'.

Barton executed a deed whereby the company would pay $140,000 to Alexander Armstrong, a NSW state politician, and buy his shares for $180,000.

But the NSW Court of Appeal said Barton failed to discharge the onus that the threat had caused him to make the contract.

[2] The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council advised that Barton could avoid the contract for being under duress, and it did not matter that he may have agreed to the deal anyway.

Thus, out of the various means by which consent may be obtained – advice, persuasion, influence, inducement, representation, commercial pressure – the law had come to select some which it will not accept as a reason for voluntary action: fraud, abuse of relation of confidence, undue influence, duress or coercion.