Default (law)

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In law, a default is the failure to do something required by law or to comply with a contractual obligation. Legal obligations can arise when a response or appearance is required in legal proceedings, after taking out a loan, or as agreed in a contract; failure to carry them out puts one in defaults of the obligations.

The concept of a "deliberate default" was considered in a UK legal case determined in 2010, De Beers UK Ltd. v Atos Origin It Services UK Ltd., where a contract had referred to this term. Edwards-Stuart J described "deliberate default" as meaning, in his view,

a default that is deliberate, in the sense that the person committing the relevant act knew that it was a default (i.e. in this case a breach of contract). I consider that it does not extend to recklessness and is therefore narrower than wilful misconduct (although the latter will embrace deliberate default).^[1]

Before the De Beers case there was little judicial guidance on the meaning of "deliberate default".^[2]

The same term ("deliberate defaulters") has been used by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) in the UK to describe "people who deliberately get their tax affairs wrong".^[3]