Abstract
An oft-repeated assertion within contract law
scholarship and cases is that a good contract law (or a good commercial
contract law) will meet the needs and expectations of commercial contractors.
Despite the prevalence of this statement, relatively little attention has been
paid to why this should be the aim of contract law, how these 'commercial
expectations' are identified and given substance, and what precise legal
techniques might be adopted by courts to support the practices and expectations
of business people. This book explores these neglected issues within contract
law. It examines the idea of commercial expectation, identifying what
expectations commercial contractors may have about the law and their business
relationships (using empirical studies of contracting behaviour), and assesses
the extent to which current contract law reflects these expectations. It
considers whether supporting commercial expectations is a justifiable aim of
the law according to three well-established theoretical approaches to
contractual obligations: rights-based explanations, efficiency-based (or
economic) explanations and the relational contract critique of the classical
law. It explores the specific challenges presented to contract law by modern
commercial relationships and the ways in which the general rules of contract
law could be designed and applied in order to meet these challenges. Ultimately
the book seeks to move contract law beyond a simple dichotomy between
contextualist and formalist legal reasoning, to a more nuanced and responsive
legal approach to the regulation of commercial agreements.
Information on the book is here.
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