Price Dominance Doctrine : Reclaiming the Doctrine of Offer in Modern Contract Law

This paper proposes a necessary evolution of the doctrine of invitation to offer in contract law, as established in Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Boots Cash Chemists (1953), in response to contemporary commercial practices. It argues that modern pricing mechanisms in both offline and digital commerce frequently operate as dominant inducements rather than mere invitations; they indicate an intention to be bound. To differentiate between invitations to offer and binding offers, the paper introduces the Price Dominance Test, establishing the Price Dominance Doctrine as a narrowly tailored, contextual subset within the existing framework of the invitation-to-offer doctrine. The paper identifies a critical "Formation Gap" where current statutory remedies worldwide (e.g., Consumer Protection Act, 2019 of India) function only as ex-post punitive measures, failing to address the ex-ante contractual status of price inducements. It argues that contract law itself must evolve to bind sellers to their inducements at the point of formation, rather than relying on regulatory penalties after the fact, thereby establishing a doctrinal framework applicable across common law jurisdictions.