Not every contract ends in dispute; many simply run their course or terminate on an event the parties anticipated when drafting. This chapter begins with termination by expiry — effluxion of time, whether notice is needed, and what happens when the parties carry on performing after the fixed term ends — before turning to terminating event clauses: how they operate, their independence from breach, and the certainty they must satisfy to be enforceable. It then examines the limits on relying on such clauses, including self-induced events and the loss of an optional right through continued performance, and the related drafting of automatic renewal clauses and extension rights, where strict compliance with prescribed methods can be decisive. Finally, it considers the effect of termination on accrued rights, the provisions drafted to survive it, the preserved common law right to terminate for repudiatory breach, and how all of this differs from termination by frustration, including the interaction with force majeure clauses.
