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This is a provision in CONTRACT FOR THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL SALE OF GOODS

  1. Effects of avoidance in general

12.1 Avoidance of this contract releases both parties from their obligation to effect and to receive future performance, subject to any damages that may be due.

12.2 Avoidance of this contract does not preclude a claim for damages for non-performance.

12.3 Avoidance of this contract does not affect any provision in this contract for the settlement of disputes or any other term of this contract that is to operate even after avoidance.

Why did they use is to verb structure here to refer to the future? Is it because of the legalese language style?

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It gets much clearer if you cut the sentence to the actual operative sentence:

12.3 Avoidance of this contract does not affect any provision in this contract for the settlement of disputes or any other term of this contract that is to operate even after avoidance.

The sentence explains which provisions are not affected by avoidance: those that go for settlement (normal stance) or any other term that is still operating when avoidance takes place. Is to do is a normal grammatical construction.

The "is to do" in this case can be grammatically replaced by "which will" and keep the meaning: Avoidance of this contract does not affect any other term of this contract which will operate even after avoidance.

In other words, the term 12.3 is a typical severing clause, pointing out that certain other clauses (which will point this out) won't be stopped from operation by avoidance.

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Yes, this is legalese that is intended on creating work for a lawyer to determine which terms fall under the bracket. Nevertheless, I'll try to explain what the lawyer's job in this instance is.

Firstly, clause 12 of your contract bundles two sets of terms of the contract as being applicable even after avoidance - 1) Dispute settlement; and 2) any other term of this contract that is to operate even after avoidance.

For the sake of simplicity, the second set of terms can be called "Other terms".

The "is to" verb is used to denote the future applicability of the Other terms.

Hence, this clause 12 treats the point in time when the terms of the contract are avoided as the event after which, even avoidance cannot prevent the applicability of the dispute settlement terms or Other terms.

An example of what the Other terms may be are;

  1. Terms relating to handing over of property,
  2. Continuation of confidentiality clause,
  3. Settlement of dues

All of the above are in addition to any jurisdiction-specific and fact-specific requirements that the parties may have, and your lawyer should ideally assist you with ascertaining.

Edit: It might also be that the contract itself have clauses that denote which terms fall within the category of these Other terms

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