Contractual disclaimers, no-reliance clauses, and releases in sale agreements do not operate to exclude liability for misleading or deceptive conduct under the Australian Consumer Law or for deceit, even in large commercial transactions between sophisticated parties. The knowledge of senior executives acting on behalf of corporate sellers in a sale process is attributable to those corporations for the purposes of both statutory misleading conduct claims and deceit. General words in a release are limited to the subject matter within the contemplation of the parties and do not extend to claims of which the releasing party had no knowledge or means of knowledge.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 40 later cases that cite this judgment.
6 of the 40 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.