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Full-Text Articles in Law

Survey Of The Law Of Cyberspace: Introduction, Juliet Moringiello Oct 2009

Survey Of The Law Of Cyberspace: Introduction, Juliet Moringiello

Juliet M Moringiello

No abstract provided.


Is It Time For The Restatement Of Contracts, Fourth?, Peter A. Alces, Christopher Byrne Apr 2009

Is It Time For The Restatement Of Contracts, Fourth?, Peter A. Alces, Christopher Byrne

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


The Economics Of Deal Risk: Allocating Risk Through Mac Clauses In Business Combination Agreements, Robert T. Miller Apr 2009

The Economics Of Deal Risk: Allocating Risk Through Mac Clauses In Business Combination Agreements, Robert T. Miller

Working Paper Series

In any large corporate acquisition, there is a delay between the time the parties enter into a merger agreement (the signing) and the time the merger is effected and the purchase price paid (the closing). During this period, the business of one of the parties may deteriorate. When this happens to a target company in a cash deal, or to either party in a stock-for-stock deal, the counterparty may no longer want to consummate the transaction. The primary contractual protection parties have in such situations is the merger agreement’s “material adverse change” (MAC) clause. Such clauses are heavily negotiated and …


Rethinking Consideration In The Electronic Age, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke Feb 2009

Rethinking Consideration In The Electronic Age, Robert A. Hillman, Maureen O'Rourke

Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers

Our fast-paced age of electronic agreements that ostensibly govern transactions as diverse as downloading software, ordering goods, and engaging in collaborative development projects raises questions regarding the suitability of contract law as the appropriate legal framework. While this question arises in many settings, we focus here on the free and open source software (FOSS) movement because of the maturity and success of its model and the ubiquity of its software. We explore in particular whether open source licenses are supported by consideration, and argue that they are, and that open source licenses are contracts. We further argue that a contractual …


Moral Judgment And Moral Heuristics In Breach Of Contract, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan Jan 2009

Moral Judgment And Moral Heuristics In Breach Of Contract, Tess Wilkinson-Ryan

All Faculty Scholarship

Most people think that breaking a promise is immoral, and that a breach of contract is a kind of broken promise. However, the law does not explicitly recognize the moral context of breach of contract. Using a series of web-based questionnaires, we asked subjects to read breach of contract cases and answer questions about the legal, financial, and moral implications of each case. Our results suggest that people are quite sensitive to the moral dimensions of a breach of contract, especially the perceived intentions of the breacher. In the first study, we framed the motivation for a contractor's breach as …


The Attributes Of Transactions And The Limits Of The New Formalism, Adam B. Badawi Dec 2008

The Attributes Of Transactions And The Limits Of The New Formalism, Adam B. Badawi

Adam B. Badawi

A recent movement in contracts scholarship—the so-called New Formalism—seeks to justify limitations on the introduction of extrinsic evidence to interpret contracts on the instrumental grounds of efficiency and empirical observation. Less attention has been directed at the development of a similar instrumental argument for the more contextual types of interpretation observed in the Uniform Commercial Code and the Restatement (Second) of Contracts. This Article engages this question by arguing that the relative ability of transactors to draft complete contracts is likely to be an important determinant of their preferred interpretive regime. Where low contracting costs allow commercial parties to draft …