Bunge Corp sued Tradax SA for wrongful termination of its agreement to supply Bunge with 5,000 tons of soya bean meal on the basis that giving notice four days late for loading the ship was not sufficiently serious a breach to warrant termination.

Clause 7 said Bunge was to ‘give at least 15 days consecutive notice’ of the readiness of the ship for loading (i.e. which at the time mean 13 June).

The House of Lords held that proper construction of the contract meant clause 7 was a condition, so Tradax had been entitled to terminate.

It would expose the parties, after a breach of one, two, three, seven and other numbers of days to an argument whether this delay would have left time for the seller to provide the goods.

It remains true, as Lord Roskill has pointed out in Cehave NV v Bremer Handelsgesellschaft mbH [1976] 1 Q.B.

I therefore reject that part of the appellant's argument which was based upon it, and I must disagree with the judgment of the learned trial judge in so far as he accepted it.

9 (Contract) paragraphs 481-2, including the footnotes to paragraph 482 (generally approved in the House in the United Scientific Holdings case), appears to me to be correct, in particular in asserting (1) that the court will require precise compliance with stipulations as to time wherever the circumstances of the case indicate that this would fulfil the intention of the parties, and (2) that broadly speaking time will be considered of the essence in " mercantile" contracts—with footnote reference to authorities which I have mentioned.Lord Scarman and Lord Roskill concurred.