Invitation to treat (or invitation to bargain in the United States) is a contract law term. It comes from the Latin phrase invitatio ad offerendum and means "inviting an offer". Or as Andrew Burrows writes, an invitation to treat is

"an expression of willingness to negotiate. A person making an invitation to treat does not intend to be bound as soon as it is accepted by the person to whom the statement is addressed."

Contract lawyers distinguish this from a binding offer, which can be accepted to form a contract (subject to other conditions being met). The distinction between an offer and invitation to treat is best understood through the categories that the courts create. Invitations to treat include the display of goods; the advertisement of a price or an auction; and an invitation for tenders (or competitive bids). There may however be statutory or complementary obligations, so consumer protection laws prohibit misleading advertising and at auctions without reserve there is always a duty to sell to the highest bona fide bidder.

David Anthony Kennedy (June 15, 1955 – April 25, 1984) was the fourth of eleven children of Robert F. Kennedy.

On June 4, 1968, eleven days before his 13th birthday, Kennedy nearly drowned while he and his siblings were swimming in the Pacific Ocean near the Malibu, California beach house of a Kennedy family friend, Hollywood film director John Frankenheimer.^{[citation needed]} Kennedy had been knocked over by a wave and was trapped on the bottom by the undertow. His father dove under the water and rescued him, scraping and bruising his own forehead in the process. Frankenheimer gave Senator Kennedy theatrical makeup to hide the bruise while appearing on television hours later.^{[citation needed]} At just after Midnight on June 5, David watched on TV as his father claimed victory in the California presidential primary election; the 12-year-old then watched as the same broadcast reported his father's assassination moments later. The event left an emotional scar on David and he began recreational drug use shortly thereafter.^{[citation needed]}