Is a counter offer accepted as an acceptance of an offer?

A counter offer cannot constitute an acceptance of an offer; it amounts to a rejection of the offer, and so operates to bring it to an end. Anson’s Law of Contract (21st Ed.), at p. 51. In Hyde v. Wrench (1840), 3 Beav. 334, the court held that an offer to buy at L950 in response to an offer to sell for L1000 was a refusal followed by a counter offer, and that no contract had come into existence. In Chitty on Contracts (24th Ed.), p. 28, para. 55 the learned author states that “a counter-offer by the offeree not only fails as an acceptance. It also generally amounts to a rejection of the original offer, which therefore cannot subsequently be accepted.” See also Cheshire and Fifoot, Law of Contract (6th Ed.), where at p. 32 the learned authors state: Whatever the difficulties, and however elastic their rules, the judges must, either upon oral evidence or by the construction of documents, find some act from which they can infer the offeree’s intention to accept, or they must refuse to admit the existence of an agreement. This intention, moreover, must he conclusive. It must not treat the negotiations between the parties as still open to the process of bargaining. The offeree must unreservedly assent to the exact terms proposed by the offeror. If, while purporting to accept the offer as a whole, he introduces a new term which the offeror has not had the chance of examining, he is in fact merely making a counter-offer. The effect of this in the eyes of the law is to destroy the original offer.