Omer Pelled and Ohad Somech, ‘The Value of Accuracy in Contract Interpretation’ (August 5, 2021), available at SSRN. In the past twenty years or so, the new formalism, led mostly by legal economists, has been quite influential in contract theory. Focusing on commercial transactions between sophisticated firms, leading scholars have questioned the courts’ competence to accurately determine the parties’ intentions and called for a textualist approach to contract interpretation (see, eg, Schwartz and Scott 2000; 2003). Two common responses to the new formalism are to deny that economic efficiency is the only value underlying contract interpretation, even in commercial contracts, and to shift attention from negotiated, commercial transactions to standard-form and consumer contracts. In ‘The Value of Accuracy in Contract Interpretation’, Omer Pelled and Ohad Somech take a different route … (more)
[Eyal Zamir, JOTWELL, 30 November]
First posted 2021-12-02 09:50:51
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