Contracts Commons^™

How To Repair Unconscionable Contracts, Omri Ben-Shahar

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

Several doctrines of contract law allow courts to strike down excessively one-sided terms. A large literature explored which terms should be viewed as excessive, but a related question is often ignored—what provision should replace the vacated excessive term? This paper begins by suggesting that there are three competing criteria for a replacement provision: (1) the most reasonable term; (2) a punitive term, strongly unfavorable to the overreaching party; and (3) the maximally tolerable term. The paper explores in depth the third criterion—the maximally tolerable term—under which the excessive term is reduced merely to the highest level that the law considers …

Vol. Ix, Tab 47 - Ex. 10 - Document "Rosetta Stone Affiliate Overview - Nov. 29, 2007, Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone v. Google (Joint Appendix)

Exhibits from the un-sealed joint appendix for Rosetta Stone Ltd., v. Google Inc., No. 10-2007, on appeal to the 4th Circuit. Issue presented: Under the Lanham Act, does the use of trademarked terms in keyword advertising result in infringement when there is evidence of actual confusion?

Do Juries Add Value? Evidence From An Empirical Study Of Jury Trial Waiver Clauses In Large Corporate Contracts, Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey P. Miller

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

We study jury trial waivers in a data set of 2,816 contracts contained as exhibits in Form 8-K filings by reporting corporations during 2002. Because these contracts are associated with events deemed material to the financial condition of SEC-reporting firms, they likely are carefully negotiated by sophisticated, well-informed parties and thus provide presumptive evidence about the value associated with the availability of jury trials. A minority of contracts, about 20 percent, waived jury trials. An additional 9 percent of contracts had arbitration clauses that effectively preclude jury trials though the reason for arbitration clauses need not specifically relate to juries. …

Labor And Employment Law, W. David Paxton, Gregory R. Hunt

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Using The Unidroit Principles To Fill Gaps In The Cisg, John Y. Gotanda

Working Paper Series

The United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG) sets forth only a basic framework for the recovery of damages, thereby giving a court of tribunal broad authority to determine an aggrieved party’s loss based on circumstances of the particular case. Unfortunately, the lack of specificity has resulted in much litigation, and seemingly conflicting results. To remedy this problem, some have argued that the gaps in the CISG damages provisions should be filled with the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts. In this paper, I argue that the gap-filling rules of CISG preclude the UNIDROIT Principles from being …

Consideration Of 'Contracting Culture' In Enforcing Arbitration Provisions, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

The Federal Arbitration Act mandates strict and uniform enforcement of standardized pre-dispute arbitration provisions. This may not be proper, however, in light of the importance of context with respect to these provisions. This Article therefore seeks to remind courts of the importance of exchange context by proposing a "contracting culture" continuum for enforcing these arbitration provisions that acknowledges the impacts of these provisions in a particular communal context. "Contracting culture" encompasses economic and non-economic relational factors that impact dispute resolution agreements, but go beyond common conceptions of "culture" focused on ethnicity, nationality, or religion. It also explores beyond the primary …

Corporate Social Accountability Standards In The Global Supply Chain: Resistance, Reconsideration, And Resolution In China, Li-Wen Lin

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

This Article provides a view on corporate social accountability standards from a Chinese perspective, a slightly different angle from that of legal scholars in the United States. The legal literature in the United States typically only focuses on the importance and effectiveness of corporate social accountability standards to regulate the conduct of multinational companies in the era of globalization. However, the views of the outsourced companies in the developing countries, on which the multinational companies impose the standards, have seldom received attention. This Article tries to fill this void by examining the situation in China. As shown in this Article, …

The Failure Of The United Nations Convention On Contracts For The International Sale Of Goods And A Proposal For A New Uniform Global Code In International Sales Law, Christopher Sheaffer

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note critiques the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) for failing to achieve its goal of creating a uniform international sales law due to ambiguities, inconsistent judicial interpretations, and language discrepancies. It proposes the development of a new Global Code to address these shortcomings, emphasizing the need for clearer guidelines, a unified interpretation framework, and mechanisms to ensure consistency across jurisdictions.

A Primer On Electronic Contracting And Transactions In North Carolina, Richard A. Lord

Campbell Law Review

No abstract provided.

"It Is Much Easier To Find Fault With Others, Than To Be Faultless Ourselves": Contributory Negligence As A Bar To A Claim For Breach Of The Implied Warranty Of Merchantability, William B. L. Little

Campbell Law Review

To better understand the policy underpinnings of the statutory bar of certain implied warranty merchantability claims, this Article first reviews the origins and the continued vibrancy of the doctrine of contributory negligence in North Carolina. The doctrine is then examined in the context of North Carolina's enactment of the Products Liability Act and the doctrine's applicability to the implied warranty of merchantability.

Renegotiations And Settlements: Dr. Pangloss's Notes On The Margins Of David Campbell's Papers, Stewart Macaulay

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Summary Of Anvui, Llc V. G.L. Dragon, Llc, 123 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 25, Kelly Walker

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

No abstract provided.

Consumer Protection And Social Methods Of Continental And Anglo-American Contract Law And The Transnational Outlook, Andreas Maurer

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Debates over the content of recent EU directives and U.S. statutory amendments related to consumer protection highlight the importance of such regulation. Criticism calling for a return to freedom of contract in both regions reflects a tension between social ideals related to equality between private parties, and a deep distrust of state intervention and market regulation. With the rise of private sources for transnational commercial standards and practices, there is an opportunity for states to facilitate selfregulation in lieu of producing public substantive regulations. This approach seems to satisfy a well-established need for consumer protection without exacerbating government intervention in …

Dangers Of Deference To Form Arbitration Provisions, Amy J. Schmitz

Faculty Publications

This Article is part of my larger project exploring what I call "contracting culture," which borrows from legal realism and relational contract theory by considering contextual factors such as negotiators' relations, understandings, and values. As part of this project, I am pursuing various threads, including empirical studies of how contracting realities impact arbitration. In this Article, however, I focus on how these realities in business to consumer contracts combine with the Federal Arbitration Act and formulaic contract law to foster dangerous deference to form arbitration provisions. The Article then invites procedural reforms and offers suggestions for regulations aimed to temper …

The Failure Of Economic Interpretations Of The Law Of Contact Damages, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

The law of contracts is complex but remarkably stable. What we lack is a widely accepted interpretation of that law as embodying a coherent set of normative choices. Some scholars have suggested that either economic efficiency or personal autonomy provide unifying principles of contract law. These two approaches, however, seem incommensurable, which suggests that we must reject at least one of them in order to have a coherent theory. This Article dissents from this view and has a simple thesis: Economic accounts of the current doctrine governing contract damages have failed, but efficiency arguments remain key to any adequate theory …

Introduction: Private Ordering In A Globalizing World: Still Searching For The Basics Of Contract, Peer Zumbansen

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Governing Contracts - Public and Private Perspectives, Symposium. Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, November 9-10, 2006

The New Public Contracting: Public Versus Private Ordering?, Peter Vincent-Jones

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article explores the hybrid character of contemporary public service organization with specific reference to the emergence in Britain over the last twenty-five years of a novel mode of governance, the "New Public Contracting." The New Public Contracting governs an ever-expanding range of aspects of modern life through contracting regimes directed at the attainment of particular policy purposes. In Britain, this mode of governance has been problematic in that many contracting regimes have failed to respond adequately to public needs. While the trend toward privatization may be politically irreversible, the role of the state should be to help establish the …

An Administrative Law Perspective On Government Social Service Contracts: Outsourcing Prison Health Care In New York City, Alfred C. Aman

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This paper explores how administrative law can mitigate the democracy deficit that may occur when privatization shifts political debate into relatively private arenas, changes its focus, or precludes debate altogether.I t also argues that the prevailing form and key terms of globalization in the United States derive from neo-liberalism, particularly in the binary division of public/private and their conflation with legal regulation and market responsiveness, respectively. This paper centers specifically on a case study involving the outsourcing of health care for prisoners by a private, for-profit health care provider, Prison Health Services, using it as a means for exploring how …

The Role Of Contracts And Networks In Public Governance: The Importance Of The "Social Epistemology" Of Decision Making, Karl-Heinz Ladeur

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article addresses the role of public contracts and of public-private networks in relation to the new cognitive infrastructure of postmodern societies and the rise of an experimental rationality. The use of contracts in public law has evolved: it is no longer just a new version of the administrative decision; it is now used as a means in a broad process of breaking up the permeability of public administration. New modes of contracting are a response to increasing fragmentation of interests in industry and in society as a whole. This evolution has also given rise to the concept of the …

Changing Contract Lenses: Unexpected Supervening Events In English, New Zealand, U.S., Japanese, And International Sales Law And Practice, Luke Nottage

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article compares differences in the reasoning underlying contractual relationships between English and New Zealand law and U.S. and Japanese law. It then builds upon an existing framework by adding the notion of didactic formality to identify another important contrast between the laws of these countries. It also discusses how CISG and UPICC fit in to this spectrum. The article concludes by questioning "strong convergence" theory in commercial law worldwide.

Governing Contracts – Public and Private Perspectives, Symposium. Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, November 9-10, 2006

Molecular Federalism And The Structures Of Private Lawmaking, David V, Snyder

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article explores "molecular federalism." Private lawmakers-ranging from familiar organizations like the American Law Institute and the New York Stock Exchange to less well known ones, like the International Chamber of Commerce and associations of banks-are here envisioned as part of a federalist scheme that operates at a "molecular" level rather than at the level of the state. The function and legitimacy of private lawmakers, and the strengths and weaknesses of private lawmaking, are assessed under the rubric of federalism. The article takes up both horizontal and vertical aspects of molecular federalism, considering the possibilities of competitive private lawmaking and …

The True Lex Mercatoria: Law Beyond The State, Ralf Michaels

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Is there an anational lexr meratoria, a "global law without a state?" The debate seems infinite. Some argue that the rules, institutions, and procedures of international arbitration have now achieved a sufficient degree both of autonomy from the state and of legal character that they represent such an anational law. Others respond that whatever law merchant may exist is really state law-dependent on national norms and the freedom of contract they provide, and on the enforceability of arbitral awards by national courts. This paper suggests that the dichotomy of anational law and state law is false. Although an anational law …

The Making Of Transnational Contract Law, Graf-Peter Calliess

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The definition and creation of contract law is entrenched in a common understanding of the strong role of the modern state in the administration of justice. This article argues that this understanding is currently subject to a fundamental transformation as a result of the increasing demand for legal certainty in cross-border transactions. Traditional concepts of private international law, mainly the law of conflicts and multilateral treaty harmonization, have proven unable to keep pace with globalization, allowing private actors to step in and gain a dominant position in providing legal services to international commerce. The resulting privatization of lawmaking leads to …

Civil Society Constitutionalism: The Power Of Contract Law, Marc Amstutz, Adreas Abegg, Vaios Karavas

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This article argues that the vision of a social law of contract is exhibited in the judgment of the Swiss Federal Court in Post v. Verein gegen Tierfabriken ("VgT"). The judgment is one of a law of contract that interacts with a community of the subjects instead of the individual subjects of a community. This paper contends that law today has the task of providing for the areas of social autonomy from which "civil society" is built up and in which, at the same time, the increasing social fragmentation can be overcome piecemeal. The article argues that conceiving contract law …

Relational Contract And The Nature Of Private Ordering: A Comment On Vincent-Jones, David Campbell

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This paper focuses on the enormous growth of contract in the public sector over the last twenty years as part of the development of the "new public management." In the United Kingdom, the most penetrating assessment of the significance of this growth for the law of contract, its theory and its use, is Peter Vincent-Jones's The New Public Contracting, the thrust of which has been the basis of Vincent-Jones's contribution to this issue, The New Public Contracting: Public versus Private Ordering? In this paper, the author examines the welfarism of public sector contracting by means of a comment on Vincent-Jones's …

The Law Of Society: Governance Through Contract, Peter Zumbansen

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This paper focuses on contract law as a central field in contemporary regulatory practice. In recent years, "governance by contract" has emerged as the central concept in the context of privatization, domestic and transnational commercial relations, and law-and-development projects. Meanwhile, as a result of the neo-formalist attack on contract law, "governance of contract" through contract adjudication, consumer protection law, and judicial intervention into private law relations has come under severe pressure. Building on early historical critique of the formalist foundations of an allegedly private law of the market, the paper assesses the current justifications for contractual governance and posits that …

Brief For Professors James D. Cox Et Al. As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioners, Stoneridge Investment Partners V. Scientific-Atlanta, No. 06-43 (U.S. June 11, 2007), Donald C. Langevoort

U.S. Supreme Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Agent Design Of Smart License Management System Using Gaia Methodology, Qian Zhao, Yu Zhou, Mark Perry

Computer Science Publications

Modern software services and data centers require a license management system to regulate the agreements that have been reached between subscriber and provider. License management helps to track usage and protect service from abuse. License agreements provide the basis for enforcement and regulation. The automation of license agreements is desired by providers and subscribers to improve transaction efficiency, give flexibility, and minimize unwanted cost.

We have proposed a framework, called SmArt (Semantic Agreement) system, that enables agreement automation in the autonomic computing context using ontology and agent technologies. This paper applies the SmArt system to the domain of license management …

The Failure Of Economic Interpretations Of The Law Of Contract Damages, Nathan B. Oman

Washington and Lee Law Review

The law of contracts is complex but remarkably stable. What we lack is a widely accepted interpretation of that law as embodying a coherent set of normative choices. Some scholars have suggested that either economic efficiency or personal autonomy provide unifying principles of contract law. These two approaches, however, seem incommensurable, which suggests that we must reject at least one of them in order to have a coherent theory. This Article dissents from this view and has a simple thesis: Economic accounts of the current doctrine governing contract damages have failed, but efficiency arguments remain key to any adequate theory …

The Dubious Upgrade Of International Development Contracts, Gabriel Swiney

Brigham Young University International Law & Management Review

No abstract provided.