15. "Coercion" is the committing, or threatening to commit, any act forbidden by the Penal Code or the unlawful detaining or threatening to detain, any property, to the prejudice of any person whatever, with the intention of causing any person to enter into an agreement. 
 Explanation - It is immaterial whether the Penal Code is or is not in force in the place where the coercion is employed.  
Illustrations  
A, on board an English ship on the high seas, causes B to enter into an agreement by an act amounting to criminal intimidation under the Penal Code.  
A afterwards sues B for breach of contract at Chittagong.  
A has employed coercion, although his act is not an offence by the law of England, and although section 506 of the Penal Code was not in force at the time when or place where the act was done.  
"Undue influence" defined  
16.(1) A contract is said to be induced by "undue influence" where the relations subsisting between the parties are such that one of the parties is in a position to dominate the will of the other and uses that position to obtain an unfair advantage over the other.  
(2) In particular and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing principle, a person is deemed to be in a position to dominate the will of another-  
(a) where he holds a real or apparent authority over the other or where he stands in a fiduciary relation to the other; or  
(b) where he makes a contract with a person whose mental capacity is temporarily or permanently affected by reason of age, illness, or mental or bodily distress.  
(3) Where a person who is in a position to dominate the will of another, enters into a contract with him, and the transaction appears, on the face of it or on the evidence adduced, to be unconscionable, the burden of proving that such contract was not induced by undue influence shall lie upon the person in a position to dominate the will of the other.  
Nothing in this sub-section shall affect the provisions of section 111 of the Evidence Act, 1872.  
Illustrations  
(a) A having advanced money to his son, B, during his minority, upon B's coming of age obtains, by misuse of parental influence, a bond from B for a greater amount than the sum due in respect of the advance. A employs undue influence.  
 (b) A, a man enfeebled by disease or age, is induced, by B's influence over him as his medical attendant, to agree to pay B an unreasonable sum for his professional services. B employs undue influence.  
(c) A, being in debt to B, the money-lender of his village, contracts a fresh loan on terms which appear to be unconscionable. It lies on B to prove that the contract was not induced by undue influence.  
(d) A applies to a banker for a loan at a time when there is stringency in the money market. The banker declines to make the loan except at an unusually high rate of interest. A accepts the loan on these terms. This is a transaction in the ordinary course of business, and the contract is not induced by undue influence.  
"Fraud" defined  
17. "Fraud" means and includes any of the following acts committed by a party to a contract, or with his connivance, or by his agent, with intent to deceive another party thereto or his agent, or to induce him to enter into the contract:-   
(1) the suggestion, as a fact, of that which is not true, by one who does not believe it to be true;  
(2) the active concealment of a fact by one having knowledge or belief of the fact;  
(3) a promise made without any intention of performing it;  
(4) any other act fitted to deceive;  
(5) any such act or omission as the law specially declares to be fraudulent.  
Explanation – Mere silence as to facts likely to affect the willingness of a person to enter into a contract is not fraud, unless the circumstances of the case are such that, regard being had to them, it is the duty of the person keeping silence to speak, or unless his silence is, in itself, equivalent to speech.  
Illustrations  
(a) A sells, by auction, to B, a horse which A knows to be unsound. A says nothing to B about the horse's unsoundness. This is not fraud in A.  
(b) B is A's daughter and has just come of age. Here, the relation between the parties would make it A's duty to tell B if the horse is unsound.  
(c) B says to A-"If you do not deny it, I shall assume that the horse is sound." A says nothing. Here, A's silence is equivalent to speech. 
  
(d) A and B, being traders, enter upon a contract. A has private information of a change in prices which would affect B's willingness to proceed with the contract. A is not bound to inform B.  
"Misrepresentation" defined   
18. “Misrepresentation" means and includes–  
(1) the positive assertion, in a manner not warranted by the information of the person making it, of that which is not true, though he believes it to be true;  
(2) any breach of duty which, without an intent to deceive, gains an advantage to the person committing it, or any one claiming under him, by misleading another to his prejudice or to the prejudice of any one claiming under him;  
(3) causing, however innocently, a party to an agreement to make a mistake as to the substance of the thing which is the subject of the agreement.