In the case of an offer, can A make an offer to B -- for a UNILATARAL
CONTRACT -- on March 1, 2000 that if B makes a certain amount of sales
from Jan. 2000-Dec. 2000 then B will make 30% commissions on all sales
from Jan-Dec. 2000?

Specifically, does not the period from January 2000-Feb. 28, 2000 lack
consideration (the past consideration rule) and thus even though there
is a unilateral K, any commissions earned by B in Jan. and Feb. of
2000 would not be "qualified" for the offer b/c this would represent
past considersation?

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 14 Oct 2006 05:14 PDT

I rather doubt that this would be considered a significant issue were
the matter to come before a court, particularly for a unilateral
contract.

However, questions like these generally boil down to the specifics of
a case, and to the particular jurisdiction in which it's considered.

Can you tell us a bit more of what you're looking for?  Case law?  An
educated opinion?

It would be important to know what jurisdiction you're asking about.

Also, it would help to know WHY you're asking.  Is this of academic
interest, or are you in a particular contract situation you need to
know more about.

In either event, the more details you can provide, the better we can
focus our research.

Thanks,

pafalafa-ga

Greetings,
There are exceptions to the rule of "past consideration", as you can
find by scrolling down a little over half way on this site:
http://www.answers.com/topic/consideration-under-english-law

This could apply in your example  - perhaps -  if B had made sales in
January and February at the request of K, a fact not expressed.
This suggests that we have insufficient information to provide a
yes-or-no answer, but maybe for your purposes, recognition that there
may be exceptions to the rule and the fact that more information is
required for an answer is a help.

Here is the Wikipedia site on US "past consideration":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration

This is a free comment and not an "answer" to your question.