Category Archives: Contract
Marcus Moore, ‘Good Faith and Certainty in Contract Law’
ABSTRACT Does a general principle of good faith create too much uncertainty in Contract Law? This article provides in-depth consideration of the controversy around this question. Reviewing a number of common arguments and reasons why good faith is said to be too uncertain, and responses to these, the article finds a complex picture rather than […]
Palonen and Pekkarinen, ‘Avoidance, Auditing, and Optimal Contracts’
ABSTRACT We consider a principal-agent model in which the principal designs contracts for the agent specifying a transfer, an allocation, and an audit rule. With auditing, the principal can verify a breach of contract and impose a fine defined by exogenous contract law. However, the agent can make the principal’s audit fail by engaging in […]
Kane Abry, ‘Perpetual contracts and commercial sense: Anglo-French perspectives’
ABSTRACT This opus discusses the desirability of enforcing agreements made in perpetuity by contracting parties in English law. It uses the case of Zaha Hadid Limited v Zaha Hadid Foundation [2024] EWHC 3325 (Ch) as a central illustration and draws on lessons from French law to suggest possible developments within English law. It ultimately contends […]
‘How to Contract for Climate Preparedness?’
Daniel Schwarcz, ‘Collective Coverage: How Group Homeowners Insurance Could Promote Climate Adaptation and Resilience’, Washington University Law Review (forthcoming 2027). Don’t let the title of the Schwarcz paper dull your curiosity! Long and technical, with the sedating word ‘insurance’. Well, if you survived such charmless (but perfectly informative) invitation, you are up for a treat. […]
Espinoza Bardales and Morales-Arilla, ‘Proximity as a Substitute of Contract Enforcement in Specialized Trade’
ABSTRACT We examine how geographic proximity substitutes for contract enforcement institutions in enabling trade in specialized goods. When products require customization, successful trade depends on either strong contract enforcement or close buyer-seller relationships enabling monitoring and trust. Proximity facilitates such relationships by reducing business travel costs. Our theoretical framework predicts institutional quality primarily affects specialized […]
Kilpatrick and Scott, ‘Is the EU’s Turn to Sustainable Supply Chains Neo-Colonialist?’
ABSTRACT Our analysis investigates the EU’s new family of sustainable supply chain instruments by analysing their neo-colonial nature when juxtaposed with modern European colonialism. While modern European colonialism was marked by the intensive extraction of natural resources, environmental conservation was also a key feature. Such conservation was frequently exclusionary, depriving local people of access to […]
Thomas Keijser, ‘The rise of reasonableness in enforcement’
ABSTRACT This article examines the increasing reliance in international commercial law instruments on open standards such as commercial reasonableness and good faith in the context of the enforcement of secured transactions. Whereas limiting the role of independent third parties (such as courts or experts) in enforcement may have advantages in certain settings, the reliance on […]
Tal Kastner, ‘Contract and Boilerplate’
ABSTRACT Contract has long shaped how Americans experience and imagine freedom. Viewed as a voluntary transaction between relative equals, contract operates as an ideal and as a form of expression that invites the force of law. It thereby illuminates the challenges of communication and the impact of context and power on speech acts. Boilerplate, or […]
Parth Singh, ‘Contractual Subordination and Restitution after Breach – Quantum Meruit for the Defaulting Performer in New York Law’
ABSTRACT The hardest restitution problem in contract law is not whether breach is wrongful. It is whether the recipient of partial performance has a legal basis for retaining the net benefit of that performance without paying for it. New York law intensifies that problem. On one side, Clark-Fitzpatrick and Corsello make clear that quasi-contract is […]
Eliza Mik, ‘Contract Law in the the Middle of an AI Summer’
ABSTRACT Before proceding with any form of regulation, it is worth reflecting on the seemingly simple question whether the principles of contract law require adaptation or whether they are sufficiently malleable to adapt themselves’. Before subscribing to the theory that contract law is directly affected by and should respond to technological change, we must be […]