What is breach of contract in this situation?

Question

Before i ask this i will set some names. lets say Tim is the owner of the business, james want to buy it, and antex is the company that sold tim the business, but still owns the store. (i just made those names up so yea) Ok what if tim buys a business from antex, and james decides to buy it, and signs a contract, but at the last minute breachs his contract and the business he was going to buy had to close down due to financial issues. But what if that james who was going to buy it that breached his contract had a side deal with antex who sold the business to the tim guy. so what type of lawsuit would it be, and would tim get compensation, or what. and what about the business, who had a side deal with james, about the same business. the company just wanted to make more money, but broke a law. what would happen in this situation. i know this is confusing, but i appreciate it.

Answer 1

There is not enough information here to tell you the answer. It depends, in a large part, upon the relationships between all individuals involved. Who did the negotiating of each sale? What is their authority (with respect to each other party)? The law of Agency comes in to play here, and quite frankly it determines who is liable to whom and for what. Rather than a breach of contract, there may instead be a breach of warranty, etc. More detail is needed to determine this situation.

Answer 2

What type of side-deal? Why did he breach? Did he know about the financial issues?

Was there interference in the contract by Antex because of the side-deal, and if so there is tortious interference with a contract, which if proved yields expectation damages.

A court would not allow specific performance in this situation, nominal damages might be possible.