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Of Fine Lines, Blunt Instruments And Half-Truths: Business Acquisition Agreements And The Right To Lie, Jeffrey M. Lipshaw Dec 2006

Of Fine Lines, Blunt Instruments And Half-Truths: Business Acquisition Agreements And The Right To Lie, Jeffrey M. Lipshaw

ExpressO

In this article, I expand upon a happy coincidence (for scholars) in reconciling the overlap between contract and fraud. Both the recent book by Ian Ayres and Gregory Klass and the Delaware Court of Chancery in Abry Partners Acquisition V, L.P. v. F& W Acquisition, LLC addressed the issue of promissory fraud – the making of a contract as to which the promisor had no intention of performing. Each treatment, however, in focusing on fraudulent affirmative representations, falls short of (a) recognizing the fundamental aspect of deceptive promising in a complex deal, namely the half-truth, (b) articulating an appropriate doctrinal …


Punitive Damages, Liquidated Damages, And Clauses Penale In Contract Actions: A Comparative Analysis Of The American Common Law And The French Code Civil, Charles R. Calleros Mar 2006

Punitive Damages, Liquidated Damages, And Clauses Penale In Contract Actions: A Comparative Analysis Of The American Common Law And The French Code Civil, Charles R. Calleros

ExpressO

Although American common law allows punitive damages for reckless or intentional torts, it will neither allow a jury to assess punitive damages for breach of contract nor permit enforcement of a contractual damages clause that is deemed to be punitive. This approach is rooted in an early Chancery practice of granting equitable relief from oppressive penal bonds and has been more recently justified as a means of facilitating efficient breach. Economic efficiency, however, can be accomplished even if punitive damages could be assessed for intentional breach, because the parties would have an incentive to negotiate a release from the first …


The Bewitchment Of Intelligence: Language And Ex Post Illusions Of Intention, Jeffrey Marc Lipshaw Jan 2005

The Bewitchment Of Intelligence: Language And Ex Post Illusions Of Intention, Jeffrey Marc Lipshaw

ExpressO

Lawyers who negotiate and litigate over complex deals have an intuitive notion of the value of what they do in connection with the contract. The arguments around technical contract language often are a lawyers’ game; in most cases, what is clear would have been clear on a handshake; and what is tightly negotiated bears only a random relationship to the areas of future dispute. If they happen to have drafted tight and clear language around the particular matter in dispute, it is as much luck as foresight. Thereafter complex agreements can have binding effect for years, but most of the …