Breach of contract - contract law Essay Example for Free

Breach of contract contract law Essay Spanish Contract Law provides a broad notion of breach of contract for any behavior that departs from the specified behavior in the contract in any way (time, quality, substance, etc.) or is not specially justified on legal grounds (actions forbidden by the government are not breaches since they are justified on a legal ground). The general benchmark to determine breach is the contract agreed by the parties themselves, and not external notions. However, external notions are used in important situation such as the consumers market where the consumers expectations are the primary benchmarks to assess quality and performance since there is not an explicit contract. External notions are also important in other market, where a third party may have some duty or responsibility over the contract, and therefore, is responsible (at least in part) for any potential breach. The reason for breach does not exclude the breach. What matters is the breach. The analysis of breach takes place in objective terms. Subjective factors generally do not exclude breach, although they may affect remedies. In certain contractual areas, breach of duty and fault are generally required (professional contracts, management contracts: breach requires violation of a duty of care or a duty of loyalty). In professional contracts, the fault may be of a professional who was in contract with the firm, and in management contracts, it may be the fault of the manager. 2) Remedies: Spanish Contract Law provides a wide range of general remedies for breach of contract: †¢ Specific performance: the court forces the breacher to act as it was established in the contract. If for example, the contract stipulated that the promiser had to give the promisee a product of quality 2 and he delivers a good of quality 1, then as remedy the court force the promiser to deliver a good of quality 2. †¢ Damages: the court force the breacher to pay a certain amount of money  (damages) to the other party as compensation. It is a monetary remedy. The court calculate the amount to be paid. †¢ Liquidated damages: these are also monetary compensation, but with the difference that they are not calculated by the court, but they are instead specified in the contract itself. One example are the soccer players contracts, or sale contracts that specifies the amount to be paid for each day of delay. Other general remedies that we can find are: †¢ Termination: if a party suffers a breach, it can contract with another party and abandon its contractual obligation. If the breacher does not agree with this, court is necessary. †¢ Reduction of prices: in case of breach of a party, a general remedy is to reduce the price to equilibrate the contract. Generally, it is the aggrieved party who chooses the remedy to be imposed. 3) Specific performance: Specific performance is a remedy for breach characterized by the fact that a failed performance or departure from required action by the contract will be imposed upon breaching party. It is also characterized by several material variants of the remedy such as: forced delivery, forced action, injunction not to do, repair defective performance and replace non-conforming good. In the case of the injunction not to do, the court oblige the breacher not to do something, such as obliging a CEO to work for the competition if in the contract it was stipulated that he cannot. Specific performance conceptually includes repair and replacement of consumer goods. The main issue with specific performance, when it is feasible, is the issue of the balance of benefits and costs of the remedy. Specific performance implies that the breacher perform as the contract establishes. However, sometimes, the cost of this performance may be higher than the benefit in social welfare terms. Take the example of the mining firm, which has a contract with the owner of the land to mine for 10 years and then clean the land. When the 10 year pass, the firms breaches the contract and refuse to clean. The cost of cleaning the land is 20 millions, and the benefit for the  owner is 1 million. So if the court imposes a specific performance to firm, society will loose 19 millions. A good alternative would be to impose damages to the firm, which would be preferred by the owner, since an agreement between the firm and the owner will be reached that maximize the social welfare. In these cases, performance may be more costly than its value for promisee: performance may be ex post inefficient. There are both positive and negative features of specific performance as a remedy. As positive features, we can distinguish low informational requirements to apply remedy (avoids cost of error linked to estimating damages) and the party aggrieved by breach appears to be satisfied in its promissory expectation. As negative features, we find performance may be more costly than its value for promisee (performance may be ex post inefficient), requires a court order and takes time, for complex performances requires costly and difficult supervision by court and performance by a party forced to comply with contract may be perfunctory (lowest effort) at best. 4) Damages: Damages are understood as general remedies that can be applied to all types of contracts and breaches of contracts. It is a remedy defined in very broad terms: amount of money to compensate any harm suffered by the injured party as a consequence of any breach of contract. We can differentiate between two kinds of damages: expectation and reliance damages. This is why it is a remedy with a variable extension. Expectation damages: Expectation damages is the sum of money that will give the party damaged the same amount of welfare and utility than if the contract would not have been breached and the final result would have been attained. Therefore, the breach party would have to pay the aggrieved party an amount of money that would compensate for the harm caused and in addition an amount of money equal to the value of the performance for this party. There are however some problems with expectation damages since they are difficult to compute and some instances of moral hazard may appear. Those who seek for damages have to provide evidence of both the existence and amount of damages. This requirement has some exceptions in case of harm in re ipsa: illegitimate use of a productive good, deprivation of a productive good, and few other examples. Expectation damages is the general rule in Spanish Law for breach of contract. It is the damage measure that accompanies termination for breach and the replacement measure of specific performance. It is awarded when there is a breach of representations and warranties, advertising and promotional communications and in cases of pre-contractual fraud that are equivalent to breach of contracts. How can we compute expectation damages? When goods or services admit substitutes or cover transactions to avoid the negative consequences of the other party’s breach of contract, the price of these transactions is relevant. If the seller breaches the contract and the buyer has bought a good, generally fungible, then the expectation damages will be equal to the difference between the price of the substitute and the price established in the contract: Psub-Pc. If the buyer breaches the contract and the seller celebrates a cover sale the expectation damages would be equal to the difference between the price established in the contract and the price of the new sale: Pc-Psub. Other ways of computing expectation damages are the following: Market damages: (for fungible good with market price) buyer will receive expectation damages consisting of the difference between the market price when the breach of contract took place (Pm) and the contract price (Pc). Seller will receive the opposite difference. Expectation damages present some limitations that reduce it scope and amount. One of this limitations is the foreseeability rule. This rule state that the breacher should only be liable for the things that are foreseen or could have foreseen at the time of contracting and that are necessary  consequence of his failure to perform. For instance, if the foreseeable harm of a breach is 100 and the aggrieved party end up suffering a loss of 1000, the foreseeability rule states that damages will amount only to 100. The foreseeability rule gives incentives to give information in the time of contracting. Those who suffer from harm must declare the value of the performance. In tort law, there is no foreseeability rule, you pay the actual damage. Another limitation is the duty to mitigate damages: the aggrieved party is under the duty to mitigate damages that the other contracting party has caused with her / his breach of contract. Reliance damages: Reliance damages: sum of money that will give the party damaged the same amount of welfare and utility than if the contract would not have taken place (the initial situation). This is why reliance damages are generally lower than expectation damages. Reliance damages cover expenses for the injured party derived from concluding the contract, specific investments that the injured party has made in reliance of performance of the contract by the other party and opportunity costs. Limited assets: Damages do not always work well. Sometimes, individuals can bear the payment of these damages, and therefore, they will have incentives to reduce them. However, this is not always the case. When the breacher has not enough assets to pay damages up to the point of optimal care, damages do not work well, because people will not pay for the consequences of their acts, and therefore, their level of care will be the optimal according to what they can pay, and not what they should pay. This is known as judgement proof problem. Damages for pain and suffering: The traditional position of the Spanish Supreme Court and Spanish Courts is: †¢ To accept damages for pain and suffering for breach of contract †¢ To award damages for pain and suffering with a relative amplitude and generosity. †¢ To award damages for pain and suffering with several functions: †¢ To avoid the problems of calculating and justifying the amount of the damage award †¢ To compensate harm in personality rights (right to life, liberty, honor, etc.). †¢ To compensate non-patrimonial values joined to economic goods and rights (discomfort, inconvenience, disappointment, frustration) †¢ To punish intolerable or egregious behaviors of breach of contract. When an individual suffer harm, her utility decreases (she goes form point A to point B, but her utility function for money will not change). If this harm is economic, we can compensate this harm with money, which will leave her at point A again. However, the harm that an individual can suffer may be non-economic, and for the same amount of money her utility decreases (her utility function changes). Money cannot restore the initial utility (a huge amount would be needed). This is the case of pain and suffering (accident and death of a relative, discomfort, etc). This is why it is useless to take insurance for death, since it would not compensate the harm. The hairy hand example: What is the difference between expectation and reliance damage? Lets look at an example. An individual was injured in his hand and lost 50% of his use. He entered in a contract with a doctor who promised to reestablish the hand to a 100% of use in exchange for quantity of money. Before the contract was made, the individual was situated in an indifference curve that related all the  combination of hand use and money that let the individual indifferent. We assume that the individual is willing to give up hand use for money. After the contract and operation, the individual was worse off, with 25% of use. What should the doctor pay as damage? If expectation damages are used, the doctor should pay the individual a quantity of money that together with the 25% of hand use leave him with the same utiity as if the contract had succeded and he had 100% of use (situate him in a higher indifference curve). If reliance damages are imposed, the doctor should pay the individual a quantity of mon ey that, together with the 25% of hand use, leave him with the same utility as if the contract did not take place, with 50% of hand use (situate him in the initial indifference curve). 5) Liquidated damages: Liquidated damages are damages for breach that are not determined ex post breach by a Court or arbitration panel, but ex ante by the contract parties themselves into the contract. Such possibility of â€Å"privately stipulated† remedies for breach is acknowledged by most legal systems, typically in the form of payment of money, although other possibilities may exist. They typically replace Court damages and they can be agreed as added penalty for breach. The most important issue is whether Courts are forced to enforce liquidated damages, or they may disregard, or reduce, the amount of the liquidated damages award. The reasons why Courts allow liquidated damages are: †¢ Freedom of contract †¢ A large liquidated damages clause may be necessary to induce promisee to find promise credible and the contract sustainable. †¢ Parties are in a better position than Courts to assess benefits and costs of determining a given amount. †¢ Liquidated damages compensate systematic underestimation of damages by Courts. If liquidated damages are higher than the expectation damages, then the court will apply the second ones. There are however some economic arguments that may lead to reduce or at least control the level of liquidated damages clauses: †¢ â€Å"Excessive† damages clauses resulting from incorrect predictions or forecasts about future outcomes. †¢ External shocks unforeseen by parties that produce an unexpected increase in the damages payment. †¢ True â€Å"uncertainty† about future costs for one party. †¢ Behavioral biases that lead party to underestimate the true adverse impact of a damages clause (the â€Å"deferred cost problem†): †¢ Over-optimism concerning future performance and costs (the example of the gym) †¢ Hyperbolic discounting of future outcomes We can see the liquidated damages as barriers to entry. An excessive amount of LD is beneficial for the parties to the detriment of a third party who  may bid for the services of breaching party. Promisor agrees to pay an amount larger than ED, in exchange of higher price. Promisee uses high liquidated damages to extract larger payment from a third party interested in performance by promisor: larger payment from third party increases the surplus to the contract parties, that is shared between them. Also, excessive payment of third party are made possible by excessive damages clauses, which reduce efficient entry by third parties, and prevents them from successfully bidding for promisor’s performance. That is why the goal of reducing â€Å"excessive† liquidated damages is not to protect the breaching party, but third-parties. Sometimes, excessive LD for signaling are unwanted, since an unforeseeable contingency may appear that will cause a breach in the contract. A pooling equilibrium may be more desirable than a separating one when the distortion caused by the penalty on the â€Å"good type† is large enough. 6) Termination: Among the general remedies for breach, the last one is termination (or rescission, or cancellation, as it may also be called in Common Law jurisdictions). This remedy entitles the aggrieved party to cancel the contractual relationship with the breaching party, eliminating the obligations arising from the terminated contract. Once the contract is terminated the parties should give back what was received under the contract, unless the goods are now in lawful possession of a third party. In this case, the value of the goods would replace the goods themselves. The elimination of the effects of the contract is retroactive: it is considered that the contract did not exist. Spanish courts have established that termination does not require a lawsuit. However, if the other party disputes the termination or its conditions, restitution would require a lawsuit. Courts do not determine termination, but declare whether termination was or not properly effected by the party. The most contested issue about termination is when is termination available as a remedy. It is clear that not every breach or non-performance allows the  aggrieved party to terminate, but a qualified breach (material or fundamental breach) is required. We can define it as follow: †¢ Relevance: the breach must affect the central obligations or duties under the contract and not merely ancillary or incidental duties. †¢ Duration: the breach should not be merely sporadic or transitory, but likely to be repeated or continuing. †¢ Importance: the breach must substantially affect the interests of the non-defaulting party. Termination does not go alone, it does not exclude damages, and in fact it is naturally accompanied by damages payment.

The Decameron Essay -- Italy Italian Literature Giovanni Boccaccio Ess

The Decameron BOCCACCIO, GIOVANNI Born in 1313, Giovanni Boccaccio is one of the greatest figures in Italian Literature. He was born in Paris, France by a French woman who remains unknown, but on many occasion he speaks very highly of her. His father is an Italian; they are part of the middle class. As for their professional status, they were Merchants / Bankers. Although, Bocaccio was born out of wedlock, his father legitimized him and took him to his house, provided him with a family and a good education. In 1340 Boccaccio moved to Florence where he meets Petrarch in 1350, his mentor. He began study Greek and Roman Classics. During 1339 to 1351 he writes The Decameron one of the most noted and readable book in all literature. It is believed that he completes the first draft of The Decameron before he met Petrarch in 1350. Somehow the meeting with Petrarch changed Boccaccio’s Literature development. What he admires the most about Petrarch is his scholar and the humanist. With such influence Boccaccio withdraw from writing about romance, and preferably writes in Latin. He was an ambassador to different mission; Boccaccio did some community work while he was intensely involved in literature and his school activity. After traveling in different part of Europe, Boccaccio returns to Certaldo where he becomes very sick. In the fall of 1374 he receives the terrible news from Petrach’s son-in-law, to let him know that his best friend passed. He was devastated, became depressed and died the following year. SUMMARY OF FOURTH DAY, FIFTH STORY This love story is about a rich, young girl that falls in love with a young man of a low social status. Ellisabetta is young, beautiful and lives in Mess... ...l of this just to keep a secret that ends up coming out anyway. This just proves the old saying, "What is done in the dark will come to light." Cottino-Jones sums up love and the community in this story in her book. She says, "the lovers in this books are constantly faced with violence, death and isolation when their affairs come into conflict with society’s rigid behavior codes "(Cottino-Jones, 79). Lack of communication and social factors made everyone in the story unhappy or dead. WORKS CITED Boccaccio, Giovanni. The Decameron. Translated by Mark Musa & Peter Bondanella. Penguin-Mentor, 1982. Cottino-James, Marga. Order From Chaos: Social & Aesthetic Harmonies In Boccaccio’s Decameron. Washington D. C.: University Press, 1982. Decameron Web. http://www.Brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/dweb/dweb.shtml. (1999, July 6).

Aloha Products

Aloha Products is a United States-based coffee-processor company that has been providing non-specialty and low-priced coffee for over a hundred years. It purchases the raw materials or what buyers and sellers refer to as â€Å"green coffee† from brokers and trade firms then processes the coffee and sells the final product to customers. Large companies such as Nestle and P&G directly import the unprocessed or green coffee beans from coffee plantations in tropical countries such as Brazil and Colombia while companies with smaller levels of business such as such as Aloha buy the green coffee beans from brokers or trade firms.Aloha Products is managed by the owners and its headquarters is located in Ohio, United States. It has three plants located in Midwestern United States, each plant being responsible for its own profit and loss. Each plants performance is measured by each plant managers gross margin generated per plant. The raw materials or green coffee beans are handled by th e company’s purchasing unit that is located in New York City. Each plant receives a production schedule that is determined from the center and receives raw materials as well as pay in accordance with the production requirements of each plant.Aloha’s Top management is regulated by the members of the founding family. Company uses centralized control system where all main decisions regarding purchases, production, sales, marketing and promotion are made on corporate level while plant managers are only responsible for their profit and loss. Also there is centralized preparation of overall financial statement at home offices. This organization has led plant managers to a lack of adequate control over the activities of the managed plant; however, they are still assessed on the performance.This method has been done until in the 1990s, when the plant managers started to speak out on their dissatisfaction on the computation of their bonuses since they do not have authority to d etermine the prices of raw materials, production schedules and output prices from the manufacturer. External factors such as the steady decline in Americans consumption of coffee from 1965 to 1990 affected the sales and profits of coffee processors as well.Because of this, the company president hired a consulting firm to evaluate the current control systems in the three major departments: Plant Operations, Sales and Marketing and the Purchasing groups. 2. Case Question No-1: Evaluate the current control systems for the manufacturing, marketing, and purchasing departments of Aloha Products Answer is: From the case we can see that Aloha products have a centralized control system. What this means is that the main office or headquarters handled the purchasing, marketing and sales activities of each of the three plants.Based on the current control system evaluating three major departments of Aloha Products are described as follows†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ Evaluation of Manufacturing Departments: Th ere are three production plants within AP’s manufacturing department; each plant is responsible for their own profits and losses. Unfortunately, the managers have no control over the any of the major activities in their respective production facilities. the vice president of manufacturing oversees all of the roasting, grinding, and packaging processes. Production schedules are provided to each plant manager for the current and following month.The plant managers also have no control over the green beans purchase, production schedule, production mix, or the costs of their inputs, as the purchasing department assigns the costs based on the specific contract for that shipment. If the inputs exceed the plant’s requirements, they are sold at the spot rate in the market, and could very well result in a loss. Evaluation of Purchasing Departments: The purchasing department is responsible for obtaining the required quantities and types of green coffee to be roasted in the produc tion plants.The level of sophistication and expertise needed makes this department a necessity; proper staffing is vital based on the complexity of the green coffee market. This department relies on relationships with growers and brokers; for smaller firms, an important feature of this department is their ability to foresee demand and required inventory and subsequently enter into forward contracts with brokers, anywhere from three to twelvemonths in advance. The costs of each shipment are based on the specific contracts for those green coffee beans, which can vary based on the various price drivers previously mentioned.This can create a diversified and volatile cost of inventory. Required inventory demand is based on communication between marketing (sales) and the purchasing department, any discrepancies at the current date is met by purchases through the spot market, which incurs significantly higher costs. The costs associated with running this purchasing department are charged t o the headquarters of AP. Currently, there is no communication between the purchasing and manufacturing department. Furthermore, purchasing department does not need to report to head office or meet any performance measurement standard.Ultimately, the power resides with upper management of the purchasing unit. Evaluation of Marketing (SALES) Departments: Under the current structure, this department is centralized. The president of AP and vice president of sales are in charge of advertising and promotion of the final products. The marketing department also determines the budgeted sales, which are then passed onto the purchasing department. Case Question No-2: Considering the company’s competitive strategy, what changes, if any, would you make to the control systems of the three departments?Answer is: The changes to the current control systems involve establishing accountability and effective communication among the three departments and providing key measures to evaluate the ma nagers’ performance objectively. Recommendations for the current management control system of Aloha Products are as follows†¦. Recommendation for Manufacturing Departments: The manufacturing department is currently a profit center. However, the plants do not have control over the costs of the green coffee.Thus, the main concern of this department as a whole should be efficiency; how well they can control the costs to roast green coffee. As such, were commend that the manufacturing department’s plants be accountable for the costs incurred to roast and package the green coffee. The performance measure for the manufacturing department at AP should be evaluated based solely on the roasting, grinding, and packaging of AP’s coffees. Conceptually, it’s unfair to evaluate manufacturing as a profit center, when in reality it has little to no control over product costs or sales.Since control over purchasing and selling will not be transferred to the manufactur ing department in this proposal, it is logical to assess based on controllable factors such as cost/pound only. This is in contrast to a measure such as using manufacturing costs as a percentage of net sales. Instead of being assessed for the performance of the purchasing and marketing departments, plant managers will now have an incentive to ensure their costs do not vary from the standard. It would still be possible to evaluate roasting plants based on gross margin as well.However, to ensure that plant managers are not penalized for fluctuations in the cost of green coffee contracts, a standard cost for green coffee would have to be established and used in the computation of gross margin. Recommendation for Purchasing Department: The purchasing department’s costs are being charged to central office. Due to this, the purchasing department is not being held accountable for the contracts it is entering into. The purchasing department’s main concern should be actual cont ract costs.Thus, we recommend that the purchasing department be accountable for the difference between the actual costs per signed contracts and the standard cost of green coffee raw materials. The actual costs should be measured in a similar manner to the current practice. Contract costs related to buying and selling in the spot market should not be included in the computed price per bag. A reasonable standard cost for green coffee contracts will have to be established based on discussions between management and executives in the purchasing department.The standard cost could potentially be based on the average of the spot price over the past 6 months. We recommend that this standard cost be updated every quarter, in order to provide accurate standard costs of green coffee raw materials. Recommendation for Marketing Departments: The marketing department focuses its efforts on advertising and promotion, however, it is not held responsible for the costs it incurs or how accurate their sales forecasts/budgets are. There is a large cost associated with differences between the forecasted requirements and actual requirements.The difference results in purchases or sales at the spot price for green coffee, which tends to cost more than forward contract prices. It is not reasonable for the marketing department to perfectly forecast sales and therefore there should be leniency in developing a method of accountability for this department. We must keep in mind that our goal is not only to hold each group accountable, but also to make sure managers feel they are being evaluated fairly and motivated to improve performance. In keeping with this, actual sales volume should be compared to forecasted sales volume.This will not only help to keep the marketing department accountable for their activities, but will also allow for forecast methodology to be reviewed and continuously improved. Overall, we believe that we also need to establish goal congruence between the three depart ments. This can be achieved through emphasizing communication between departments; this would encourage the forecasts of purchases/sales to be more accurate. In order to increase goal congruence and communication we recommend that the departments also beevaluated based on an overall measure for the firm. This measure would be economic value added (EVA), as when it is applied, managers will not just be focused on their own department profitability, but also that of the company as a whole. The EVA approach promotes the same profit objectives across the different departments. Thus, by keeping the same structural organization and only changing the way each department is evaluated, the incentive plan for each department more accurately reflects what each department can control.

Rome Articles on the End of the Roman Republic

Julius Caesars posthumously adopted son, Octavian, became the first emperor of Rome, known to posterity as Augustus -- the census-taking Caesar Augustus of the New Testament Book of Luke. When Did Republic Become Empire? According to modern ways of looking at things, the accession of Augustus or Julius Caesars assassination on the Ides of March 44 B.C. marks the official end of the Republic of Rome. When Did the Republic Start Its Decline? The collapse of Republican Rome had been long and gradual. Some claim it started with the expansion of Rome begun during the Punic Wars of the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. More traditionally, the beginning of the end of the Roman Republic begins with Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus (the Gracchi), and their social reforms. 1st Century B.C. It all came crescendoing to a head around the time the triumvirate of Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus came to power. While it was not unheard of for a dictator to assume total control, the triumvirate grabbed power that was supposed to belong to the Senate and the Roman people (S.P.Q.R.). End of the Republic Timeline Here are some of the major events in the history of the fall of the Republic of Rome. The Government of the Roman Republic 3 Branches of GovernmentHaving witnessed the problems of the monarchy on their own land, and aristocracy and democracy among the Greeks, the Romans opted for a mixed form of government, with 3 branches of government.Cursus HonorumDescription of the magisterial offices and order in which they must be held.Comitia CenturiataThe Assembly of the Centuries looked at the age and wealth of the tribesmen and divided them accordingly. The Gracchi Brothers Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus brought reforms to Rome by circumventing tradition, and in the process started a revolution. Thorns in the Side of Rome Spartacus  is the summary of the slave rebellion led by the Thracian gladiator Spartacus beginning in 73 B.C.Mithridates  was the King of Pontus (on the southeast side of the Black Sea) kept trying to increase his holdings, but each time he tried to encroach on the territory of others, the Romans stepped in to push him back.By the time Pompey was asked to handle the pirates, they were out of hand -- almost destroying commerce, preventing trade between cities and capturing important officials. In order to put an end to their power, laws had to be passed and Sulla and Marius One, an impoverished aristocrat, and the other, a new man, Sulla and Marius couldnt have been more different. Sulla started out in a subordinate position and the two fighting each other nearly brought Rome to ruin.Seven-time consul, Marius led the Roman forces to victory in Africa and Europe. Despite the assassination of his political associates, he died in office an old man. The Triumvirate General, consul, writer, Julius Caesar is sometimes called the greatest leader of all times.Pompey was known as Pompey the Great after he removed the threat of an annoying Roman gadfly, the so-called friend of Rome, Mithradates of Pontus, in Asia Minor.Crassus  was the third member of the triumvirate, with Pompey and Caesar despite the fact that Pompey had stolen Crassus glory vis a vis putting down the slave revolt of Spartacus. They Had to Die Cicero  was a pivotal figure at the end of the Republic, a sometime friend of Pompey, an orator, and a statesman.Cleopatra  led an important country, Egypt, as well attracting the attention of both Caesar and Mark Antony. As such, she straddled the shift from Republic to Roman Empire.Mark Antony  was a  member of the second triumvirate with Augustus and Lepidus, after Lepidus was dispensed with, Mark Antony had increasing trouble maintaining his position.