Opinion ID: 2638709
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: As a Matter of Law, the Agreement to Negotiate Fails for Lack of Specificity.

Text: Valdez Fisheries asserts that even if Alyeska's May 6 letter was not an acceptance of the bid offer, it was a binding agreement to negotiate. We will enforce agreements to negotiate. [25] Participation in negotiations, however, does not necessarily mean that the parties will be able to agree on mutually-acceptable terms, [26] and we will therefore enforce an agreement to negotiate only if it contains a more specific way to resolve ... differences, such that we are able to discern when the agreement to negotiate has been breached. [27] That standard is not met here. At best, the proposal and Alyeska's reply letter are evidence of an agreement to negotiate that fails to spell out a method by which differences are to be resolved. We therefore affirm the superior court's dismissal of Valdez Fisheries' agreement-to-negotiate claim. Even if the agreement-to-negotiate claim were to proceed, Valdez Fisheries would only be entitled to recover costs associated with the negotiations themselves. Since an agreement to negotiate is not an agreement to agree, [28] any costs Valdez Fisheries incurred in anticipation of performance were not incurred in reasonable reliance on the agreement to negotiate. Further, any costs incurred in preparing the bid were incurred before Alyeska agreed to negotiate. They are therefore not recoverable under this theory. Sea Hawk also argues that it has a claim against Alyeska for breach of the duty to negotiate. Like Sea Hawk's third-party beneficiary claim against Alyeska, this claim depends upon Valdez Fisheries' claim because Alyeska never entered into any agreement to negotiate with Sea Hawk. Therefore, our rejection of Valdez Fisheries' duty-to-negotiate claim requires us to affirm the dismissal of Sea Hawk's duty-to-negotiate claim.