You don’t appear to have taken into account the annual summer works’ shut-down.

The delivery of goods was to have taken place last month and we have been caused serious inconvenience through the delay.

We expect to have been informed by Feb. 15th.

It should also be noted that in commercial correspondence the subject of the infinitive adjunct is a person (e.g. we, they) or a thing denoted by the subject of the sentence (e.g. our firm).

e.g. We look forward to your early reply.

The Suppliers inform the Buyers that there had been a fire.

Our enquiries with your representative whom we asked…

The infinitive in business correspondence may also serve as an adjunct to a passive verb. In this case it always follows its head-verb and is lexically restricted. The infinitive in this function follows the following verbs: to consider, to expect, to instruct, to prepare, to repute, to require.

e.g. The national Bank of Argentina has been instructed to open a credit valid until 30 November.

The goods are considered to be in conformity with the certificate.

The delivery date is understood to be the date on which the Suppliers apply to the Buyers’ Shipping Agents.

The use of the infinitive adjunct to a passive verb is stylistically restricted. It frequently occurs in newspapers, scientific prose and business correspondence, but it is not characteristic of literary style, and in social English it is not common at all.

The infinitive may serve as an adjunct to an active verb followed by a noun or a pronoun which stands to the infinitive in the relation of a subject. The combination is lexically restricted, because in business correspondence it may be found only after the definite verbs from the following list: to advise, to allow, to ask, to enable, to expert, to help, to prefer, to urge, to want, to wish.

e.g. We would advise you to take an all-rich insurance policy.

If the period of guarantee has not expired we will ask you to replace the machine by another one.

Should the Buyers fail to keep this rate of unloading…

We agree to accept this shipment on condition that you…

The complex infinitive adjunct to an active verb is not restricted stylistically and is in extensive use in scientific and fiction literature and also in commercial and business correspondence.

The Indefinite Infinitive occurs in contracts in the function of the predicate, expressing obligation and a future action.

e.g. Delivery to commence in six to eight months and to be completed in twelve to sixteen months (to commence = will commence).

Date of shipment to be determined by date of Bill of Lading (to be determined = will be determined).

It is allowed only in texts of contracts and other business documents.

Each contract also has constructions with participles.

e.g. The letter of credit is to be valid for 90 days, all bank charges being at the expense of the Buyers.

Here is a construction with Participle I where it refers to the noun in the General Case, which goes before the participle. It is not common in speech, but it occurs in contracts.

Constructions with the Perfect Participle, however, are rare in contracts and show an action prior to another one expressed by the predicate.

e.g. We have included in our claim only the cost of material and labour, all other expenses connected with the repair not having been taken into consideration.

Some participles which have no explanatory words in contracts can either precede or follow a noun. Mostly they are constructions with Participle II:

e.g. the required specification vs. specification required;

the enclosed letter vs. the letter enclosed.

The Past Participle Passive always follows a noun if it has explanatory words.

e.g. a telegram received from London;

the cheque attached to the letter.

If a participle shows only an action which is made upon the subject, it follows a noun.

e.g. The sellers are to inform us of the quantity of the goods loaded.

Buyers are to accept or pay for the quantity shipped.

The participle showing the quality, if there is one, precedes the noun:

e.g. illustrated catalogue; damaged goods;

within six weeks of the stipulated time of shipment.

The definite article the in contract has its own peculiarities.

In every contract there are Buyers and Sellers and these words can be used either with the definite article or without it. Nevertheless, they are always capitalised: Buyers, Sellers.

e.g. This contract is made between Rossexport, hereinafter called Sellers…

…and India Electric Company, hereinafter referred to as the Buyers…

Although in Russian it is always singular, in English it can be either singular or plural. That is why all variants are possible: the Buyers – the Sellers; the Buyer – the Seller; Buyer – Seller. The most common is the first variant though the others are also possible.

e.g. Should the Seller fail to notify the Buyer of a contingency…

If, however, they are to be shipped to Buyer who lives a considerable distance away… (absence of article)

The goods sold under the present contract are to be delivered by Sellers and accepted by Buyers. (absence of article)

The definite article is also used with ships.

e.g. The S.S. Svir is to arrive on July, the 5th.

Also the definite article is rarely used after prepositions of the Latin origin per and ex.

e.g. The goods were shipped per S.S. Svir.

The wheat was delivered ex S.S. Svir.

The definite article is never used with nouns which are followed by a number in sizes, codes, etc.:

e.g. under Contract № 25; Order № 1015; our account No. 100/1066;

under paragraph 9 of your General Conditions of the order;

in accordance with clause 6 of the agreement.

From the above-written we can conclude that contract has its own grammatical and stylistic peculiarities which have much in common with the ones of business correspondence. However, they are unique enough to consider contract a specific type of business correspondence.

2.3. Lexical peculiarities of contracts

From the lexicological point of view contracts are of great interest. The lexicon of contract has its own specific features. First of all, it is rather stable. As a rule, words have their only exact meaning. There are no words which are emotionally coloured. As a result of it, we can point out the words, which are present practically in every contract. They are the following.

Whereas expresses every man’s idea of how a contract begins. One must be careful about mixing up recitals of history with what is actually being agreed on. It would be wrong to write *Where as A admits owing B $ 1000, because the admission may later haunt one. Rather less damage would be caused by using of the proper word. Whereas means that the parties have been engaged in a series of transactions resulting in a dispute over accounting between them.