Category Archives: Contract
‘Contract Interpretation and Patent Renewal Services’
Sid DeLong provided the helpful reminder on this Blog that, in order to understand a case, you have to understand the business. With my background in the humanities and my disinterest in commercial matters, this was a challenge for me as a law student. But in practice, I found the process of getting to understand […]
Wayne Barnes, ‘Form Contract Consent and the Doctrinal Ordinariness of Limited Awareness’
ABSTRACT Contract scholars have objected to enforcement of standard form contracts for over a century, arguing that consumer ‘consent’ to unread boilerplate fundamentally lacks legitimacy. The critique centers on ‘limited awareness’ – consumers neither read nor understand the fine print terms to which they ostensibly assent by signing or clicking. This absence of full, knowing […]
‘Theorizing for Insiders and Outsiders’
Gregory Klass, ‘What Might Contract Theory Be?’, in Understanding Private Law: Essays in Honour of Stephen A Smith 181 (Evan Fox-Decent, John CP Goldberg and Lionel Smith eds 2025). Gregory Klass’s article, ‘What Might Contract Theory Be?’, was published in the collection, Understanding Private Law, a volume honoring Stephen A Smith, the eminent Contract and […]
Nadia Napieraj, ‘Ensuring compliance with the UN guiding principles through contract: can AI help?’
ABSTRACT Every business has a social responsibility to respect human rights, upheld by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the associated ‘Protect, Respect and Remedy’ Framework. In response to this, human rights compliance clauses (‘HRCCs’) in international supply contracts are on the rise. In particular, they have been adopted by […]
Bao, Dukes and Xiao, ‘Puffery as Occlusion: A Story of Rational Inattention’
ABSTRACT We ask whether non-persuasive puffery can affect purchase decisions. This question is motivated by legal strategies that are used by marketers accused of false advertising and rely on a presumption that consumers dismiss puffery as sales bluster. But if consumers dismiss puffery, then why is it such a staple of marketing communication? In contrast […]
Myriam Gilles, ‘Arbitration In Name Only’
ABSTRACT Modern arbitration clauses hide a dirty secret: many aren’t arbitration at all. They masquerade as mutual commitments to fair and efficient private dispute resolution but, in truth, are mere imitations of genuine arbitration provisions. Some reserve for the drafter the power to amend or terminate the clause at will without notice or consent from […]
Utkarsh Tiwari, ‘Price Dominance Doctrine: Reclaiming the Doctrine of Offer in Modern Contract Law’
ABSTRACT This paper proposes a necessary evolution of the doctrine of invitation to offer in contract law, as established in Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Boots Cash Chemists (1953), in response to contemporary commercial practices. It argues that modern pricing mechanisms in both offline and digital commerce frequently operate as dominant inducements rather than […]
Thi Nha Nam Bach, ‘Reforming the Duty of Disclosure: The Emerging Shift Towards Consumer Protection in Contemporary Insurance Law’
ABSTRACT This article examines the evolution of insurance contract law reforms, focusing on the shift towards a more policyholder-friendly approach to disclosure duties in some Civil Law and Common Law countries. Traditionally, insurance law favoured insurers, but recent reforms have increasingly prioritised consumer protection by adopting inquiry-based disclosure and restricting insurers’ rights to void contracts […]
Hartzog and Solove, ‘Privacy as Contract?’
ABSTRACT Nearly everything people buy, every service they use, every account they create, and even every website they visit involves the collection, use, and transfer of personal data – a matter that is ostensibly governed by privacy notices (also called ‘privacy policies’). Privacy notices are the foundation of privacy regulation; most privacy laws rely on […]
Eleonora Dimitrova, ‘Contract Interpretation in English Law: Doctrinal Analysis, Practical Guidance, and Student Exercises’
ABSTRACT Contract interpretation occupies a central and persistently unstable position in English private law. Since Investors Compensation Scheme v West Bromwich Building Society, courts have formally rejected literalism while continuing to rely on proxies of objectivity – textual primacy, commercial common sense, and the reasonable observer – to constrain judicial discretion. The result is not […]